(SEPT-2013) Cybertron Era Cartoon - Reviews and Favourites

After the high of Armada, and the low of Energon, the third chapter in the "Unicron Trilogy" was Cybertron.
The Cybertron series went from mid 2005 to the end of 2006, just before the first of the Live-Action movie toys came out.
In Japan, Cybertron was called Galaxy Force.

Details of the Cybertron series can be read here.

This cartoon series had 52 episodes, but was a little more complex than Armada and Energon, so didn't drag out as much. The mission in this series was to visit several planets that had Cybertronians on them, to find Keys and the Omega Lock, in an attempt to "unlock" Primus and save their homeworld from a black hole.

The Cybertron cartoon has the odd situation of having the first two episodes of the Japanese version being edited (cut up) to give us one episode at the start of the series as an introduction, instead of two... but then they put the scraps of that two-part story into an episode that was tacked onto the end of the series... after it had concluded. It was therefore called a "lost episode". :rolleyes:


Did you watch any of the Cybertron cartoon?
If so, what did you think of it?

Here's your chance to re-watch and review the series.

Are any of the episodes recommended viewing for others?

I am not sure if it is because I had just finished watching Energon but I really liked Cybertron, becoming my second favourite Transformers series after Robots in Disguise. While it seemed at the beginning that the story wasn't the best since it was just one big fetch quest, there were some surprising moments and I started to really like it at the second planet. I loved the arc about Vector Prime, I actually felt emotional about what he had done, it was one of the best moments in the cartoon. The series also built up to a nice climax, and the final battle between Optimus and Megatron was awesome.

There were some nice Optimus combinations here, too bad that they didn't translate that well into toys (if you think about it, savage claw mode is Leobreaker forming Optimus' arm, super mode is just a wing pack and extended legs, and sonic wing mode is only Wing Saber strapped onto his back with a new chestplate, nowhere near as complex as RiD or Armada's combinations). The transformation stock footage were well done and visually interesting (I really liked the banter and constant talking in them), but were used way too much.

I didn't find the kids too annoying. The animation took some getting used to but nowhere near as clashing as Energon's cel-shaded animation. The music was good. There was a lot of good humour. Overall, a solid series and worth watching.

I watched most of this as Galaxy Force and loved some of the characterizations. Thundercracker was a real punk and it was great!

As Christalcase said the OPtimus combinations were nice but didn't translate well into toys. I would have liked to see Leo Breaker have a hand for the Leo Prime mode.

I find it odd that the story spent the longest time on the speed planet and loved the idea of the Autobots having to split up into separate groups to cover the areas.

Vector Prime was a great character and I love the episode where he appears for the first time and Transforms. That's one Transformation sequence I can watch again and again. It also helps that I am a sucker for clockwork stuff. His final episode was pretty damn impressive as well.

Overall I recommend this series. Looks good and is enjoyable enough to watch again.

One of the great things about the Cybertron cartoon is that it was the first series to really revive/take inspiration from the original G1 intro theme. Although all of the voiceover and vocals were corny I still enjoy it's techno-dancey tones to this day. This paved the way for the Animated intro which is kickass.

One could argue that RiD was the first to do this but that was just plain shite :p

I've never watched Cybertron; after the terrible dubbing on Armada and even worse dubbing on Energon, I just couldn't bring myself to watch Cybertron. So I've only ever watched Galaxy Force.

Overall I don't find it to be a particularly memorable series. They've moved from the underwhelming cel shaded animation in Super Link to underwhelming CGI mixed w/ cel animation in Galaxy Force. Their faces are about as expressive as Pat Lee's art. Storywise it doesn't stand out to me; I actually preferred Super Link.

Watched many, remember few. Remember giant Starscream facing off against Primus which was kinda cool, the fact Starscream had the bearings to literally take on his god :D. Besides that remember them visiting the Speed planet and remember a bunch of little kids talking to Scourge in a park and that's about it :p

Dirt Boss, Brimstone, Undermine are the few I loved to watch. I would say overall, a solid series and worth watching stuffs.

Did you watch any of the Cybertron cartoon?
If so, what did you think of it?
One of my favourite series :P

Are any of the episodes recommended viewing for others?
All of them :P

Wonderful series that had some issues but ones that can be easily overlooked and not take away from the series.

If you have time, watch the galaxy force version with subtitles as it is better. That being said, the English dub is very watchable as long as you don't mind a crazy myriad of accents.

A little less time devoted to Velocitron in the first half and more to Gigantron in the last quarter. The dimension x stuff was interesting but fell flat with no time to develop.

The 3d animation was flat but allowed for quick turn around of episodes and meant the characters looked exactly like their toys too which meant you had a fair idea how toys would transform if you watched a few episodes!

I enjoyed this series although I think they spent too much time on Speed Planet.

I remember watching it before my ozformer/toy collecting days. I remember the episode about half way through where they are having a big battle and Megatron gets his machine gun cyber planet key and shoots the crap out of Hot Shot, Scattershot and Red Alert. Then the episode ended and Foxtel took a break from the show. Not being on the Internet too much back then and not collecting toys I had no idea about The Cybertron Defence Team I was left in total cliffhanger status. It was one of the last times I have been left hanging for a show so well done to Cybertron.