Series Review: Transformers War For Cybertron (Netflix) - SPOILERS

[Autocon]

Watching the cartoon. Didnt know how id feel about the animation but im enjoying it. Id rate it 8/10.

Jetfire reminds me of dinobot. More later once i digest it all.

[Autocon]

Its been released on netflix now.

[klystron]

Yes! I know what I'm doing tonight.

[GoktimusPrime]

WARNING: THIS REVIEW THREAD CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE NETFLIX TRANSFORMERS WAR FOR CYBERTRON TV SERIES

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My thoughts...
The animation is mostly fairly good. It's done by the same Japanese animation studio who animated Transformers Prime and Robots In Disguise (2015-17), but I suspect it may have been done on a smaller budget. The main thing that bugs me about the animation are the "soft bellies."
The animation models are toy-accurate to a fault! They even have the blast-effects pegs and 5mm weapon ports! :eek: I love me some toy-accuracy, but this seems a bit much. Still, I'd rather have more than less. Now nobody can whinge about how the toys don't look like the show :rolleyes: I wonder if the animators used 3D scans of the toys to base their animation models on. If so, then I think that this would be the second time that a Transformers series has done this (the first being Beast Wars).
I liked Bumblebee's journey. He's much like what Wheelie is supposed to be like in G1! (although the Sunbow cartoon totally dropped the ball on that) and we see his journey towards becoming an Autobot. The Ultra Magnus Protocols thing seemed to be kinda pointless (other than a plot device to find the 1D12 MacGuffin)
The other Autobots were pretty mundane as characters. I actually found that the Decepticons had better characterisation than the Autobots. Impactor and Jetfire deal with leaving the Decepticons as they realise that the cause that they used to fight for is no longer what they signed up for. Starscream's journey of ambition leading him to earning his command of the Seekers. Megatron being forced to further compromise his morals in the justification of ending the war (I liked how the killing of Ultra Magnus wasn't just a plot device but also a major turning point sealing Megatron's descent into amorality).
Heh, I liked the spin that they put on Soundblaster and his splinter faction. He even sounds better than Soundwave.
The voices are a mixed bag. I think that in an attempt to make them sound more robotic, some of these characters end up sounding like they're speaking inside a tin can, particularly Optimus Prime and Jetfire.
I love how Mirage is finally seen using his electro disrupter powers as it's originally meant to be (as described by his original 1984 bio)! :D He doesn't become invisible, he creates illusions - he creates mirages! That's why he's called Mirage and not Chameleon! :) His "bunshin" tactic was also cool, and I liked how they showed how generating these illusions are also physically taxing for him (also accurate to his G1 bio).
Some nice Easter Eggs with the repainted Gumbies - I saw a red Bumblebee (not Cliffjumper), a Sideswipe model painted like Deepcover, and another Sideswipe model painted in Sideswipe's G2 GoBot colours.
The overall story doesn't seem all that fresh to me. It mostly seems to be stuff borrowed from what we've seen in the IDW comics and the Aligned Continuity. :/
English is demonstrably not the writer's first language :rolleyes:
How did Omega Supreme end up beneath the Ark?!? (and without anyone noticing??) :confused:
I like the way that they showed Elita-1 opting to stay behind to continue to fight Megatron's forces, as opposed to the G1 cartoon where she pretty much just missed the bus :p
I don't find this Optimus Prime to be a likeable character. He's by no means evil, but I just don't find him to be likeable. He seems to be more emotional and prone to bursts of rage - which is very different from the "be strong enough to be gentle" standard set by Peter Cullen. He's not a badly written Optimus Prime, but I'm not fond of the way that he's portrayed by the voice actor. He sometimes come across as an angry kid (kinda like Anakin Skywalker from the prequels). This might make more sense if he were meant to be a younger Optimus Prime or Orion Pax but... he's not. He's already carrying the Matrix.
At some points of the story it felt like the writer forgot that the Transformers can... transform. There were a fair few characters who just never transformed. Did any of the Refraktors ever transform? Bumblebee, Arcee and Cog are running from Soundblaster's crew -- running? They have wheels! Okay, I understanding using that conveniently located hovercar to getaway after Bumblebee shut down, but before then you'd think that they'd be rolling.
There was at least one moment where the writer forgot that these robots aren't humans and aren't meant to be speaking English. A very common mistake with TF writers (even IDW frequently makes this mistake). Bob Budiansky was one of the better writers who made an effort to portray the Transformers as otherworldly. I understand the need to make them relatable to a human audience, but scifi/fantasy writers dealing with non-human species always need to be careful not to make them unrealistically too human.
Cog's moment to shine, boiz! :D I did like how they found a way to wedge in Cog's Weaponiser mode during the Energon theft. Cheesy, but cool.
I like how they maintained visual continuity by keeping Bumblebee without a logo and keeping the Decepticon logo on Jetfire's chest, as there were no points in the story where they would've had time to add/change logos.
I wonder if the bomb implanted in Jetfire's head is removable or not
Decepticon-disguise Mirage could've been his Diaclone red colours (with accurate yellow eyes)

Overall Thoughts: It's just okay. This mini-series has its moments but it doesn't seem to offer anything really fresh or groundbreaking story-wise. Most of the things that we see in this series are things that we've seen before in other continuities. It's not like say Beast Wars or the IDW comics which shook things up and brought something new to the table by doing things that had never been done before. Overall it's a very safe series by giving fans what they want (much like the Solo movie); so if that's your sort of jam then you'll be in for a treat, but don't expect anything terribly new.

[SMHFConvoy]

It wasn't the disaster that the Prime Wars trilogy was but personally, I'm kind of over this story being presented over and over again. It's like Batman, Superman and Spider-Man, we know this story.

[Paulbot]

My main takeaway from watching it: a good toy commercial that’s 18 months too late for the toyline it’s selling.

[Omega Metro]

My main takeaway from watching it: a good toy commercial that’s 18 months too late for the toyline it’s selling.

Exactly.

[Gehirn]

It's kinda sold me on trying to still get Siege Ratchet at least.

Good show for what it is. Haven't seen the prime wars trilogy so can't compare that.

Also whats up with how big Astrotrain is??

[Paulbot]

Also whats up with how big Astrotrain is??
Guess they don’t want mass shifting? Also I think it solves the second spoiler leader box right?

I was also really surprised there were no battlemasters anywhere.

[SharkyMcShark]

The animation models are toy-accurate to a fault! They even have the blast-effects pegs and 5mm weapon ports! :eek: I love me some toy-accuracy, but this seems a bit much. Still, I'd rather have more than less. Now nobody can whinge about how the toys don't look like the show :rolleyes: I wonder if the animators used 3D scans of the toys to base their animation models on. If so, then I think that this would be the second time that a Transformers series has done this (the first being Beast Wars).[/list]


I recall hearing in an interview that they using the CAD files for the toys as a starting (and apparently ending?) point.

[Autocon]

Finished it. I liked it. Animation is more enhanced/refined then the trilogy though it looks wrong when they are in vehicle mode. Wonder if the recolours have names yet :p

Wonder if earthrise will be a cut down g1 esque story on Earth

[Bidoofdude]

Copying my thoughts from the Ozformers Discord:

I just finished, it was pretty good actually. Not at the level of Prime or Animated I think, but the storytelling, characters and themes were still quite good. I haven’t seen too much of BW but the ship scenes gave me some of that vibe visually (probably the somewhat similar CGI style and Ark). The animation and textures(?) were actually a lot more dynamic and visually grabbing than I would have thought. They did manage to avoid making them look stilted and toy-like, a big concern of mine with taking the direct CAD files of the toys.

They did fall into the “this war” schtick a little more than I would have liked, and the pacing was definitely a bit too slow in parts. I was very surprised when all the climax suddenly started happening, I thought there would be a little more before it. The voice acting except for a few characters (Elita and Megatron were good) was a bit piss poor and embarrassing/cringe for some characters. I am excited for the next chapter though, this is much better than what we have previously gotten in Machinima Prime Wars shows/bits.

I hope they pull a few more stops in Earthrise(?), it was easy in this one to see the limitations like the constantly reused character models and limited cast (not in a good way) in general. There was a lot of telling rather than showing. With the constant references to the period slightly before like the rise against oppressors, battle of Tarnergate, etc it would have just been nice and powerful to just see that stuff happen instead. Some prequel trilogy problems!

Side note: obviously a marketing technique but I did find myself appreciating a lot of the Siege toys on my shelf in a different way now, having seen them with voices, personalities and moving dynamically. It doesn’t really motivate me to get any more than I have however, seeing as most are getting superior new versions or I have a good one already (Henkei Hound and Mirage).

[Sinnertwin]

What a struggle that was.

Some quick thoughts:

Prime needs to go. "Our planet is in mortal danger, the Decepticons are out to wipe us all out... I think I'll just talk some more." Shut up. Hand the reigns over to Elita. She is clearly wearing the pants. Why the Matrix chose a lima bean like him is beyond comprehension. BuT hE's OPtiMUs... derp.

How convenient that Shockwave has a virus just waiting for the Alpha Trion protocols to kick in. The same protocols that amounted to nothing. Great way to pad out a thin story -that will fill 12 minutes of screen time, only another 132 to take care of.

Omega obviously had enough of Optimus talking too, unlike the other guardians that are just there... How the Decepticons got hit by him when he telegraphs his moves from 80 kilometres away? Lols

Blah blah morals blah blah Jetfire blah Impactor blah blah blah

90,000 toys and we only see 7 character models.

I counted 7 fusion cannon blasts from Megatron. That's just over 1 per episode. Shows how much fluffing each side does

Starscream was one of my highlights. Go you good thing.

[Robzy]

Personally, I'm kinda tired of every line of Optimus Prime's dialogue being delivered with such gravitas all the time. I miss the 80s when he just talked normally, with different inflections :) . Most of the voice acting wasn't that great, but the overall story was ok.

[danny-boy]

Just started episode 2. I?ve seen enough to say this is the best thing since the original G1 US cartoon. Absolutely loving the animation. I?d buy the figures if I wasn?t collecting Masterpiece.

[doublespy]

Aside from the inherent lack of fluidity of 3D animation in action scenes, I think the whole thing was beautifully animated. And there were some excellent set pieces that were atmospheric and just plain gorgeous.

However I really hate the contrast between toy-based characters straight imported from CAD models that are toy-accurate to a fault, and the made-up characters models that clearly can't transform. They just don't look like they belong together. And I guess the show kept the relative scale the same from the toy CAD files, which resulted in a really short Impactor and Prowl; then you add in the mix a freakishly tall Elita-1 and Arcee, the scale is just all over the place. And what's with those broad wrestler shoulders on Arcee?? That character model looks worse than MP-51!

Plot is pretty much non-existent imho. I could tell they tried some kind of character development, but everything was far too predictable. I really liked Elita-1 though. She's consistently been the voice of reason in the Autobot camp and a level-headed second-in-commander.

[mikeyc7m]

found this nice review:
https://www.polygon.com/animation-cartoons/21347569/transformers-war-for-cybertron-siege-cameos-characters-easter-eggs-autobots-decepticon (https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.polygon.com%2Fanimati on-cartoons%2F21347569%2Ftransformers-war-for-cybertron-siege-cameos-characters-easter-eggs-autobots-decepticon&t=N2Y1OTY4NjIxMDU4NGE0NDdlZTdiYTBmZTIyNWZlOTAzMDk0 YWFkOCw3ODM1NjRlNTE3YjVlNmVhYzgyYWY4ODA1ZWU3NDQwMW M5NzkyYzMx&ts=1596203402)

i really struggled with the slow voice acting. is it possible to speed up a video?

i liked how they referenced a lot of canon, but the plot was also too derivative. the only original bit was the macguffin of alpha trion's knowledge which only lasted a few useful minutes anyway.

optimus was crap, he got smacked down in the first episode, clearly not a real rival to megs. elita was boss, nice twist on canon how she "chose" to stay. the best bits were impactor's and jetfire's character journey, bumblebee's was meh. poor magnus always seems to luck out in these stories.

overall it was really cool to see such toy-accurate animation that honoured canon, hope the next chapter gets better.

[kup]

I have just finished watching the whole series myself. I did like it but I can't help to feel that this show had a lot of unfulfilled potential. Overall this first season is just 'ok' and that's it. There is nothing really exciting or good about it and neither is there anything wrong or terrible about it either. It's just 'meh'.

Why I say that? Well the story seems to be very 'geewunn' as in lacking in scope and depth, just the basics. The characters are all presented as very bland with none of their key personalities present, just the odd reference to their abilities like Mirage's holograms. Prime seems less of a leader and more of someone who begs for blind faith from his followers than really deserving of it. At the same time, he has been made dull just like the movie counterpart in which he is just sad and depressed like everyone else in this show. Also the story is so simplistic that its hard to believe this is part of a long and complicated war - They just went into fetch quests down with the old cliches like zombies, getting back to base on time, etc which again shows a lack of creativity and adds to the blandness. I understand that the war is tragic but something that the Marvel comics and IDW exceeded with good writing is that despite the tragedy of war, there can be some bits of humor and light hearted moments with character interactions that do not betray the overall theme of the story. The dialogue and character interactions here were mostly very bland and by the numbers to serve the thin fetch quest plot, this was specially so for the Autobots as at least the Decepticons had a bit more depth. The convenient plot devices and mcguffins were also what added a bit too much to the generic feel of the story so they lacked impact or surprise.

Animation is not personally to my liking, it is too much like the Livio Ramondelli art we have seen in IDW like in the Autocracy series but it works alright. They reuse a lot of character models but I can understand that for budgetary reasons. Now having said that, the 'great war' also seemed to be portrayed as very small and narrow scoped with just a few characters on each side but once again this is probably due to budget but a more creative writing team could have added an awe factor to make the scope feel grander without showing it.

I did like that Megatron was portrayed as the more competent leader as he strategised, provided a vision and inspired his troops (for the most part) and made difficult decisions. Prime on the other hand seemed more like a hopeful idiot demanding blind faith from his troops and falling into a bad situation onto another with only plot armor helping him through it - That part is disappointing. Commendable for the show was that they partially blurred the line between 'good and evil' by portraying the Decepticons in a more 'Dark grey' shade than straight out villains with differing perspectives on what it means to be a Decepticon. Despite most characters having bland and generic personalities, they did bring out some non-geewunn variety in characters not normally seen in animation such as Impactor, Flywheels and Cog. However it seems that the writing staff knew very little about them as they were just there to serve the narrow plot purpose (like the cliche sacrifice so Ratchet can push the button in time) than anything more deserving which makes me think that the writers are only superficially familiar with Transformers in a geewunn sort of way (as in only familiar with the 1984 - 1986 cartoon).

So overall this show is 'ok'. It can be dull at times but watchable. For Transformers 'just ok' is a huge feat however as almost everything in the last 20 years for TV/Movies have been rubbish with maybe one or two small exceptions. Within this context, Netflix WFC may be by far one of the best Transformers series we have gotten in ages but in the greater scheme of things, it's just 'meh'.

[Dimi194]

I binged this all in one go - I thought it was pretty cool (actually want to rewatch ahah!)

While I understand some of the pacing was weird, and I agree with the non-toy characters looking super out of place (why didn't they sort this out?), overall I liked the story and the characters.

Really enjoyed seeing the toys 'come to life'... It's definitely made me want to pick up some Siege characters (like Jetfire) that I passed on initially.

Would have been cool to have the battlemasters in it (esp as they appear in the Netflix packs) but I mostly enjoyed the character spread - don't mind the recolours, but I felt like they kept mentioning 'the team' but characters like Arcee, Moonracer, Ironhide, Prowl etc just appeared out of nowhere in Episode 4/5, when they should have at least been in the group shots earlier-or they should have stuck with a main cast of 6-7 characters (like TF1).

That said, I enjoyed myself a lot and am now very excited for part 2 and 3!

[Autocon]

Yes some bots showing up and disappearing seemed odd especially one in the middle of a battle. I thought BB was hubcap at first being a bit of a douchbag. Such attitude. Ill stick with my 7/10. Some niggles and cliche writing but overall good.

[griffin]

found this nice review:
https://www.polygon.com/animation-cartoons/21347569/transformers-war-for-cybertron-siege-cameos-characters-easter-eggs-autobots-decepticon (https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.polygon.com%2Fanimati on-cartoons%2F21347569%2Ftransformers-war-for-cybertron-siege-cameos-characters-easter-eggs-autobots-decepticon&t=N2Y1OTY4NjIxMDU4NGE0NDdlZTdiYTBmZTIyNWZlOTAzMDk0 YWFkOCw3ODM1NjRlNTE3YjVlNmVhYzgyYWY4ODA1ZWU3NDQwMW M5NzkyYzMx&ts=1596203402)



Probably a decent commentary on the series too, identifying a lot of the characters and who/what they homage. The author is a main contributor of the TFwiki, who only joined that site a couple days ago, so not an existing contributor to that site... but at least it meant the article wasn't full of "facts" by someone who isn't familiar with the Brand (I remember an article years ago on one of the Transformers Movies, written by someone who tried to sound like an authority on Transformers, but got a lot of things wrong).

I did enjoy the paragraph on the leader class toy "Spoiler pack" for wave 1, noting that it was originally marketed to fans to not open it before seeing the cartoon as it would spoil something in the cartoon, but doesn't appear to have anything that spoils the cartoon... and actually contains items that aren't even in the cartoon.

[SharkyMcShark]

Ive just got through episodes 1 and 2. Honestly I find it kind of bland. It has the whiff of a fan community project.

Was Dr SMOOV Wheeljack in this?

[Autocon]

The Megatron picture hanging up, I think its megatron from the gladiator times.

[GoktimusPrime]

Gawd... I assumed that that red Bumblebee was a whole new character based on red Bumblebee (as a reference to Bumblebee having been both yellow and red in G1). But learning that it was meant to be Cliffjumper makes it really disappointing. I thought that Hasbro had learnt to move away from the "red Bumblebee = Cliffjumper" fallacy (especially given that Earthrise Cliffy is a whole new mould, or at least a different tooling from ER Bumblebee) :( :(

P.S.: Just for poos and giggles I was rewatching Episode 1 dubbed in Japanese. Aside from laughing at some of the hilariously inaccurate translations...

* They used only Anglophone names for everything. Autobots and Decepticons instead of Cybertrons and Destrons, Cybertron instead of Sabretron, Optimus Prime, Bumblebee and Jetfire instead of Convoy, Bumble and Skyfire etc. I would've thought that the dub would've used the Japanese names if they wanted to hit the 80s nostalgia thing (as G1 MPs all use Japanese names like Convoy etc.). Although they still call Wheeljack "Hoiljack," although "hoil" is Japanese for "wheel" so I guess technically it's still Anglophone (just the Japanese approximation of - MP Wheeljack's box still spells it as "Wheeljack").

* The voice acting for Convomus Prime was a lot better than on Optimus Prime, though that's not hard.

* Guh... every voice sounds like they're in a tin can. I think it's to make it consistent with the Anglophone version, but there Optimus Prime and Jetfire sound super tinny whereas other characters have varying degrees of tinnyness, with some characters being rather minimal. In the Japanese dub they've maxed up the tinnyness for the sake of consistency, but not in a good way. Gawd I'd wish both sides would just stop making everyone sound like they're speaking into a tin can! If you can't make their voices sound robotic in a good way (as the G1 cartoon did with the slight electronic warble) then just don't do it at all (as Beast Wars did (or did not)).

* On the plus side for non-English speaking Japanese fans who want a proper translation, the Japanese subtitles are a much more accurate translation. I thought they would be "dubtitles," but they're not. Given the violence in this show I'd say the dubs are more for the benefit of the visually impaired rather than for little kids who aren't old enough to read yet. Although the dubs lack audio description, so in a lot of fights all you'd hear are loud noises and shouting. :p

P.S.: according to tfwiki, the showrunner for this Netflix series was also the showrunner for the Machinima Prime Wars series, and one of the writers also worked on said series. :/ I must admit that I never watched past Combiner Wars, but I'm still reeling in shock at how bad the English is in this Netflix series. From an apparent lack of understanding on how some plurals work (or exist) to misunderstanding the difference between past simple and past participles. There is no way that any of these writers can be native English speakers. I outright refuse to believe it. Remember, Bumblebee is the Chose One, not the Chosen One. <shudders> :rolleyes: Unless I am mistook (but not mistaken! :p )

[Seraphim Prime]

Having had somewhat low expectations for this given some of the comments I'd seen here and elsewhere I found the six episodes surprisingly enjoyable.

There's enough lore and backstory not to get too in the way. Every character felt like they had a purpose in the storytelling, which only a little bit of interchangeability (Prowl, Ironhide, Spinister and Skytread drew the short straws sadly). I wish there was a bit more to Jetfire's change of heart than being onboard with the Decepticons and then making a change to the Autobots. There could have been a bit more nuance in the early episodes. I wish we'd had a bit more interaction between Optimus, Megatron and Magnus outlining their shared history but understand the difficulties there would have been in doing so.

The set up of a dominant Decepticon force and guerrilla Autobots, with unaligned characters and the Mercenary collective mixed in was a familiar yet pleasingly different approach than what we've had before. But the idea of the Autobots and Decepticons being different races fell flat to me

The animation was pretty fluid and didn't jar in my viewing which was a big plus, compared to the previous Machinima work. A lot more effort was put into character models and filters to make the series seem real and lived in.

[SharkyMcShark]

I finished this last night.

Even within the remit of it being a 6 episode long thing, I didn't think it was great.

PROS
- Some of the art looks gorgeous when still.
- I felt that the story got more interesting as it went along. It started generic but built from there.


CONS
- The amount of recolour background characters was really really distracting, and kind of unnecessary. If the studio wasn't in a position to make more character models, then I'd have preferred a tale with a smaller focus (think Beast Wars or Animated) as opposed to cramming blue/green/purple Sideswipe into the background of scenes. That would also have given the creators scope to give a bit more time to characters that didn't really get it, like Prowl, Ironhide, Sideswipe and Cog.
- That Optimus Prime is a bit of a loser, isn't he?
- Dialogue was at times tortuous

[Lint]

Didn't really find this much of a step above the Machinima stuff, but with only six 25 minute episodes you can't really expect too much. It really did feel like it belonged on Youtube.


The amount of recolour background characters was really really distracting, and kind of unnecessary. If the studio wasn't in a position to make more character models, then I'd have preferred a tale with a smaller focus (think Beast Wars or Animated) as opposed to cramming blue/green/purple Sideswipe into the background of scenes. That would also have given the creators scope to give a bit more time to characters that didn't really get it, like Prowl, Ironhide, Sideswipe and Cog.

Yeah this was extremely distracting. They would have been better off with the Cyberverse approach having genericu mook Autobots and Decepticons.

[Tha_Phantom]

I enjoyed it. My biggest issue with it is the lack of transforming going on and Soundwave's voice which you could barely understand. Enjoyed the dark tone and treatment they gave characters such as Bumblebee, Jetfire and Soundblaster. It was cool to see Jetfire start off as leader of the seekers and his transition toward joining the Autobots was done better than the G1 cartoon. Also liked seeing Starscream going after Jetfire's job rather than Megatron's and becoming leader of the seekers by the end of it. Animation was pretty spectacular aside from the stretchy torsos when they walk. I already had bought many of the Siege toys, but seeing the show made me want to take them off the shelf and mess with them again. I'm especially loving the tetrajet mould more than ever and I'll be displaying Jetfire with his Decepticon logo for a while, so IMO the show did its job. Looking forward to Earthrise and Kingdom.

https://i.ibb.co/g6frQ8w/116457126-1358835960971579-2315059799863256954-n.jpg (https://ibb.co/WsMH7XF)

[Tetsuwan Convoy]

* They used only Anglophone names for everything. Autobots and Decepticons instead of Cybertrons and Destrons, Cybertron instead of Sabretron, Optimus Prime, Bumblebee and Jetfire instead of Convoy, Bumble and Skyfire etc. I would've thought that the dub would've used the Japanese names if they wanted to hit the 80s nostalgia thing (as G1 MPs all use Japanese names like Convoy etc.). Although they still call Wheeljack "Hoiljack," although "hoil" is Japanese for "wheel" so I guess technically it's still Anglophone (just the Japanese approximation of - MP Wheeljack's box still spells it as "Wheeljack").


The toys use the Anglophone names as well, so their Japanese names ARE Oppuchimasu Puraimu, Bannburubee and Jettofaiya.
I have a guilty pleasure of saying words in katakana even when I don't needo tsu!
After seeing the show, I kind of want a Jetfire to lead my seekers (which is only Starscream at the moment, in his Earth mode)

[Trent]

Pros:
-Megatron’s lips
-Score - very Tron Legacy inspired
-Megatron’s lips
-Jetfire vs Starscream
-Did I mention Megatron’s lips?

Cons:
-Everything else with a special mention to the incel that animated Elita-1’s walk.

[Bemblebuu]

Enjoyed the series and liked the dark tone of it.

Did not like Optimus Prime's stretchy torso. Very distracting and looked super cheap and could have been better modelled and animated without compromising the toy look.

Animation could have been more dramatic, and I don't agree with some YouTube reviewers who blame it on restrictions due to toy model accuracy. Animation is about timing and movement, but I do concede that budget can affect its quality.

Also: What was with the lack of Ironhide? Poor fella hardly had a scene!!!

[SharkyMcShark]

Also: What was with the lack of Ironhide? Poor fella hardly had a scene!!!

I know right. I remember him grabbing his rocket launcher at one point and going to check a door and that's it.

[Sutton]

I don't know, I felt the whole thing was kind of piss-poor. The whole thing just came across as a fan-made student project.

Why is it so hard for production companies to get a Transformers show right? The WFC and FOC games are STILL the gold standard for doing Transformers right, IMHO.

[klystron]

errrr... its ok.
Was going to write some words, but my thoughts are pretty much mirrored (and undoubtedly delivered in a more entertaining way) by Thew in his Siege Talkathon vid.
Only point of difference/extra bit I will add is that I loved UM being murdered by Megs. (I do not love UM). So that was a big YAY! from me.

Despite its shortcomings, I am looking forward to Chapter 2.

[shockNwave]

Good series except for the fact that Chromia and Elita-1 stay back on Cybertron and Arcee gets to visit Earth. Also hate the horrible death that the lovely Moonracer suffers.

[Gehirn]

I thought 'Earthrise' was said to have their Earth modes?

[Autocon]

Couple of things were a bit for spectacle rather than logic story telling. Rather same same as seige.

Why does Megatron bleed pink?

Kingdom should be better than these two installments.

[Bidoofdude]

I finished watching Earthrise last night. It is definitely an improvement on Siege with smoother animation, some slightly stronger characters and cool environments. Alas it has the exact same pitfalls as Siege. A lack of direction in the story which stalls randomly until the last couple episodes. The voice acting and dialogue writing is beyond terrible. Optimus Prime’s voice actor was pretty sloppy in Siege but in this series they added him shouting a whole lot, but it just sounds like a terrible Christian Bale Batman impression when he does. The mercenaries were fine, just not very exciting, and it makes no sense that they somehow have a faction/faction symbol- Doubledealer even says as much but that doesn’t help anything.

On the plus side, I was a fan of the CGI this time around. It looks a little campy and old, but a lot of the visuals like Galvatron’s model and all the ship scenes (exterior and interior) reminded me a whole lot of Beast Wars. Galvatron is very stylised and cartoony in design compared to all the CAD figure models, which I thought it was actually cool.

The final scene with Dinobot looked superb and I’m very excited to see that look fleshed out more in Kingdom. It definitely looks like an optimised update of the Beast Wars cartoon visual style in the Earth shots. Another cool moment was when Bumblebee and Optimus see the flourishing organic planet on the other side of the Space Bridge, but disregard it because of a lack of (presumably mechanical) life signals.

Overall the show was barely passable in terms of story and performances, but it was salvaged for me mostly by the new visuals. I was surprised with how quickly it ended. There’s basically no way in hell that they replace any of the actors or writers for Kingdom, but they’ve made some positive steps. Someone said it on TFW, that they should really make as clean a break as possible after Kingdom when making whatever new Generations show comes next. Prime Wars and WFC should be left behind, particularly their showrunner/writer(?) who doesn’t seem to be up to the task. Give it to a fresh team and animation studio.

[Deano85]

Would love to see more actual transformations in the show instead of characters just popping in.

[Skyfire]

Random thoughts after seeing all 6 episodes:
> Great for those who got their exclusives - Bug Bite, Exhaust, Dirge, Ramjet, Thrust(?), Acid Storm...
> Pity Astrotrain showed up for only 2 seconds.
> As Deano85 wrote, a shame we don't see much or even any transformation (didn't people scalp Bumbleebee because he transforms into a VW beetle?)
> Optimus's voice is so painfully slow when it's just not needed. Peter Cullen it ain't.
> The jokes don't work given the overall heavy tone of the show - Red Alert's praise for Jetfire's flight, Optimus and blowing scrap up.
> Yay for Scorponok lovers - can't understand what he says but get gets a lot of screen time, even when they grenade him (such a long, boring fight, slowed down even more by Megatron's and Optimus's interchanges).
> Dead Universe reminds me of the 2001 Space Odyssey portal ending (and seems just as long and boring), but yay for Sky Lynx lovers.

[Flukey]

In episode 6 when wheeljack took over the nemeses any thoughts on the seeker with Astrotrain and Reflektor since Thundercracker boarded the arc with the others? Or shall we presume its just a random Seeker?
Also is it me or does Astrotrain look a lot smaller then his appearance in Siege?

Has Bumblebee in this entire series (as the Movieverse and in recent incarnations) become the G1 equivalent of Hot Rod as assuming the role of the next in line to take the matrix?

For me the G1 Easter eggs were a nice touch like when they battled on the Nebula, Ravage went straight for Bee which was a common battle in the carton series.

Outside of a couple of nit-picks here in there I thoroughly enjoyed the series and look forward to Kingdom..

[GoktimusPrime]

Brief thoughts about Earthrise...
* BORING. Suddenly Beast Machines feels thrilling in comparison. :eek:
* Voice acting^work is horrendous, especially "Emo-timus Prime."
* English is better than Siege; only noticed one or two grammatical errors (incorrect possessive pronouns)
* Episode 5 is completely forgettable and skippable.
* Y U NO TRANSFORM?
* Quintesson character ended up being just a generic monster. Yawn.
* Mercenaries end up being pretty generic.
* Scorponok little more than a big monster to run away from. Cue Yakety Sax (Benny Hill chase music). :p
* Elita-1's TMNT team of Autobots and their side quest. Because the one thing we've learnt from the Star Wars Sequels is that audiences just love side quest driven stories. :rolleyes:
* For a show called "Earthrise," Earth barely features in it. Also, not that many Earthrise toys appear in the show. We have Doubledealer, Wheeljack, Quintesson Judge, Sky Lynx, Scorponok and... uh... that's it. Oh, and I guess Astrotrain too (I'd forgotten that he appeared in Siege too).
* Sky Lynx reminds me of Col. Sanders^the Architect from Matrix Reloaded. Only that the Architect lectures Neo for 10 minutes in a 138 minute movie, whereas Sky Lynx lectures Optimus Prime for 20 minutes in a 30 minute episode. Geez! And he just repeats himself... it was a 20 minute lecture that could have been 1 minute long.
* Why is Optimus Prime such an idiot? Nothing he does makes any tactical sense at all. It's as if he read The Art of War by Sun Tzu and thought, "I'm going to do the complete opposite of everything in this book!" :eek:

[Dimi194]

Would love to see more actual transformations in the show instead of characters just popping in.

Apparently the budget constraints mean they can't animate all the characters transforming (seems like a FATAL FLAW in a show called Transformers but anywho...)

[Lint]

My two cents

*Better than Siege. More characters, more settings, faster pacing. More stuff happens.
*Prime continues to try and sound like Batman
*Elita-1 is fast becoming my favourite Autobot leader. Will she end up with the matrix?
*That Quintesson scene came out of nowhere but was badass
*How many redshirt Cogs do you Autobots have?!?
*People are already having fun with the novel lines written for this show. The fan service quotes from G1 are not required.
*Stay on the boat Ironhide!
*Soundwave really really really keen on deciphering stuff.
*Poor Skytread. About 2 years too late to sell some Chromia toys though.
*The run up to the final episode was great. The ending, as usual, a total anticlimax.
*The show should be renamed "Optimus vs Megatron: Talk for Cybertron Trilogy" :p

[Omega Metro]

Just watched it. Episode 5 was terrible but overall, it was ok.

[GoktimusPrime]

*The show should be renamed "Optimus vs Megatron: Talk for Cybertron Trilogy" :p
LOL :D
It reminds me of IDW's Robots In Disguise series where you have some issues where, from cover to cover, it's just talking heads with bugger all action. Although RID's talking heads did serve to advance the story. But on the other hand, it was more prone to bad English, whereas at least Earthrise is grammatically better written (I'm genuinely curious to know what John Barber's native language is :confused: ).

https://i.ibb.co/V3BRRPL/meme-skylynx.jpg
Earthrise Episode 5: Like Seinfeld, only not funny

[Sinnertwin]

A small piece of me really wanted Robots Talking Slowly: Rise to be something akin to The Empire Strikes Back in terms of emotional gravitas & storytelling... instead all I hear now is the song Kiss Me by Sixpence None The Richer playing in my head every time OP & Megatron face off.

Kingdom will also fall flat on its arse just like RTS Rise did.

[Dimi194]

Unlike most reviewers, I preferred SEIGE - and the eps on Cybertron were certainly more interesting than on the Ark.
Don't really mind that OP and Megs talk so slowly, but they had a lot of repetitive interactions that didn't really progress things, and there was a lot of aimless time in space (the Scorponok battle went for sooo long - why?). Ep 5 was super wacky - wayyyy too much exposition + I didn't understand where Unicron and Galvatron fit into the timeline thing... but keen for a new toy of him regardless :P

[klystron]

Did enjoy it more that Siege, but yeah,,, it has some issues.

Liked the cannibalism of the 'Cons (something we have seen before). Dark.
What are all the flags and banners made from on an inorganic planet?
The Cybertron scenes were pretty good. Made me want to buy a Netflix Chromia (so its an effective commercial for the toys, I guess).
Why did the the 'Cons lock Chromia in a cell with 2 EMP grenades on her back? And why did she not use them?
The Scorponok fight scene.... Way. Too. Long. Also kinda boring.
Why were Autobots "running" away from Scorponok? Surely their alt modes are faster. If only they were allowed to access their alt modes...
Did enjoy seeing some more characters.
I was somewhat disappointed with the Sky Lynx scene. That whole dead universe thing was crap.
In fact, the whole space-bridge and portals and dead-universe and decepticons-chasing-autobots thing was rubbish. After a good start to the show, these eps (3, 4, & 5?) just killed it for me.
I'm not sure how any Earth based alt modes fit into any of this story....
Yay, Dinobot!

[GoktimusPrime]

What are all the flags and banners made from on an inorganic planet?
NO CAPES (https://tfwiki.net/mediawiki/images2/a/ae/SiegeEp2MysteriousCloakedFigureWhoCouldItBe.jpg)! :D