Cartoon review - Robots in Disguise (2015)

[prjkt]

Finished watching last night - not bad, typical wrap up for a kids' show, so I'm not too fussed there.

Liking Windblade - especially considering she's almost a 1:1 match to the Takara Legends Windblade deco, apart from the weird bits behind her fans (which make no sense at all) - characterisation is great (considering the episodes with her were written by the same author who wrote the first Windblade comics.)

Plenty of Decepticons throughout the series that'd make great toys... hopefully they're realised.

[GoktimusPrime]

I'm behind -- only just finished watching Deep Trouble. I'm skipping other posts in this thread to avoid spoilers. Anyway, thoughts about this episode:
* I like how Bumblebee uses telescopic (microscopic) sight, a nice nod to G1 Bumblebee's ability. Would've also been cool to see him drive underwater, but I guess one G1 nod is enough.
* I also like how the architecture/design of the sunken Cybertronian craft and various other features within it (e.g. console interfaces etc.) are reminiscent of the Nemesis in TF Prime. Helps to visually reinforce that this is the same continuity. On that note...
* Ooh! Ground Bridge!
* Also interesting to see all those Fixit-type Mini-Cons.
* Hearing Grimlock - as the team's resident beast-moded Autobot - being referred to as "Big Bot" was a nice little nod to Beast Wars.

I barely even noticed Octopunch's alt mode. Meh. Kinda felt sorry for Denny when his miniature vintage car collection got wrecked by flooded sea water. Ouch.

[liegeprime]

Finished watching the whole season, The finale was very good. Can't wait for next season..

you can watch it all at www.animeflavor.com .. it's in the cartoon section along with other TF titles (Prime/BH) if you missed any of those. Can't say Ill be buying the toys still though. hahaha okay mebbe just the minicons ;P, always a sucker for minicons...

[GoktimusPrime]

Okay, just watched the ending, and I must say that the return of Optimus Prime was done much better than I thought. I really liked how Optimus Prime isn't looking to usurp Bumblebee of his position as Autobot leader. The one thing I've enjoyed about this series has been seeing the Autobots not being led by Optimus Prime. I also like how Megatronus wasn't Megatron -- cos yeah, don't want to see Megatron come back to lead the 'Cons either. I also quite like how the episode made explicit continuity links with Transformers Prime; specifically how Unicron is still Earth's core, and how he contains the Anti-Spark. Having said all that, I'd rather that they didn't bring The Fallen back and let someone else resume the reigns of Decepticon leadership. Steeljaw still has the potential to be a credible threat to the Autobots, particularly now more than ever since he's been scorned by Megatronus.

[griffin]

I bought the season set on DVD today from JB Hifi, and have started watching it.
First impressions... it's like the return of Armada - "gotta catch 'em all".

One good thing about it is that my toys now make sense or are more familiar, by actually resembling something I have now watched "in motion" as a cartoon.
The bad thing is having these Decepticons get so much character and nice looking forms, but then fail to get toys to play along with. It's a shame that we only get an episode or less for most of them too.
Chopshop (the combiner from five spiders) would be lot of fun if it were a toy. I wonder how many of these Decepticons Hasbro has plans to produce. We have a couple of hundred prisoners, so I'm pretty sure we will see a lot of Decepticons who will never get toys.
(poor Fixit... I don't wanna know what socket of his Chopshop plugged into)

Underbite is a lot bigger than I was expecting... definitely needs a larger sized toy than the three we already have (Legion, 1-step, Tiny Titan).
He reminded me of Fat Bastard from Austin Powers... and kept saying, "I ate a city", like Fat Bastard saying "ah ate a baby".

The sudden appearance of Optimus at the end of episode two didn't make sense, nor did his vague explanation.

Grimlock is definitely not the FOC Grimlock... unless there is something later that explains his completely new personality.
He sounds a bit Australian though, or, fake Australian that American actors do.

Where are the humans? They drive through cities and not a single human.

A lot of the music reminds me of the Tron Legacy music by Daft Punk.

[griffin]

Watched the second volume, which is 14 episodes so far.

Okay, Grimlock doesn't sound like a fake Aussie anymore... but did in the first two episodes.

The Decepticon symbols on Grimlock bugged me, considering it wouldn't have been by choice after seeing his character in FOC... but since Steeljaw was scratching his out to remove a tracking device, I guess in this series the Decepticon symbols are a tracking/branding device, so whatever Grimlock did to earn a prison sentence, he was given the Decepticon Brand as a result.

Steeljaw (a shame that it is using a classic Autobot name) sounds a lot like Knock Out. I actually had to look up who the voice actors were of both just to see if it was the same guy (it isn't).

Damn I want some of those Decepticons as toys. I can now see why American fans who had been watching the episodes a few months back are so frustrated, and there is an obvious drop in interest in the RID toyline than the TFPrime toyline, because the non-gimmick toys are almost entirely Autobots (similar to the TF4 movie ratio).
I know that if a villain isn't featured heavily it won't sell as many toys as random good-guys toys, but most of these Decepticons are quite interesting, both as a character and how it looks in terms of both modes. If they don't show up again I can understand why Hasbro were only focusing on the recurring Decepticons for their toys, but still, I would have thought we'd see a lot of the Decepticons done as Legions, which are cheap and profitable (compared to larger sizes), or at the very least, filling out the 1-step toyline.

[Paulbot]

The RID Decepticons (and Autobots) all have interesting unique designs and fun (if somewhat clichéd/obvious) personalities. The design aesthetic of an animalistic robot mode and earth vehicle mode is new and if this series had a toyline with the budget and design creativity that Animated had, the new RID line could have been a hit.

But the Warrior class toys suffer from the cost cutting (and are more expensive than Generation deluxes), the legions are okay, and the rest of the toys are gimmicky things.

[GoktimusPrime]

The bad thing is having these Decepticons get so much character and nice looking forms, but then fail to get toys to play along with. It's a shame that we only get an episode or less for most of them too.
Chopshop (the combiner from five spiders) would be lot of fun if it were a toy. I wonder how many of these Decepticons Hasbro has plans to produce. We have a couple of hundred prisoners, so I'm pretty sure we will see a lot of Decepticons who will never get toys.

^This is my biggest gripe with this franchise. I just started reading the comics, and it gets even worse as they introduce more "Decepticons of the Day" which will probably never get a toy.

[MayzaPrime]

All the Decepticon toy talk aside (only cause it frustrates me as well that we aren't getting them )

I finished watching the series over the weekend and was impressed with the overall ending. I do like how the team has new team members. I like all of the minicons.

Some of the Decepticons were really cool, like Steel Jaw, Fracture, Chop Shop, Underbite, Scowl, Hammerstrike, Terrorstrike, Thunderhoof & Groundpounder but most of the rest were forgettable some were just awful like Zizza, Malodor, Ped, and the worst of all Springload.

Despite some lame Decepticons getting 1 or 2 episodes I did enjoy the series and really like how the Bee team interacted and worked together.

While its not my favourite series of all time (Beast Wars is hard to beat) it will be one that I will re-watch again.