I actually really liked Kingdom. It had a compelling storyline/plot that kept me tearing through/binging the episodes in a single sitting. It's a shame it took two long slogs of Siege and Earthrise to build up to get to that point, but I'm glad the team got to give it their all for this last instalment. The Beast Wars cast really propelled it, far more than the boring old G1 cast in the same old vague and uninteresting situation that has been run into the ground by now and disappointed time and time again in new G1 incarnations.
The voice acting of course is really off, and plain abhorrent on many characters, notably Beast Megatron, Ironhide, Optimus Prime and Unicron. It distracts a lot from the show, in a similar way to how the constant reuse of the same handful of models does throughout this whole trilogy. I wasn't bothered by a lot of the BW voices besides Megatron, as it seemed like they were at least giving it a good go. The characters aren't really much of "characters" though- for a lot of them, you couldn't name a single thing about their character that isn't their role, name, alt mode or how they look. Part of what makes shows like Beast Wars and even the G1 cartoon memorable are their rich characters. Even for a toy commercial, the old cartoon characters were written with their characteristics and quirks first, which made them shine through the campy storyline and not-so-hot animation and keep us here after so many years as toy collectors. You could say the same about the original techspecs, which give us so much in a couple sentences with no other supplementary media included, not even a picture. Having a good narrative is the core of a good piece of media, but it must be helped along by good characters with clear motivations.
I really wish they would give a show/film to a competent team that knows what makes Transformers so compelling, and something more along the lines of MOTU Revelation or the various DC movies. Not everyone loves MOTU Revelation, but that show gets so much done in a single episode, that it seems like a similar job for Transformers would have covered about 3-4 WFC episodes in that same amount of time. Hasbro should know by now that the "grim/dark vague war setting on Cybertron and fighting for energon on a blank/empty Cybertron" schtick over and over again is not working. A mediocre piece of media with G1 designs slapped over the top for surface level nostalgia is not enough to please fans, we want something to chew on that isn't super patronising and overdone. Bumblebee (the film) was a nice film that did well with the smaller-scale heartwarming side, but a lot of fan love for that movie came unfortunately came from the very visible G1-esque designs that otherwise had little impact on the movie, and calling it a day. It's nice to have those things, but it doesn't seem to go much further than that, and that seems like a common pattern with modern Transformers stories.
Seeking the Following:
- CW Brawl
- Earthrise Runabout
- Earthrise Thrust
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Originally Posted by Bidoofdude
