TF Animated Ep15 - Megatron Rising part 1

[Tober]

One of the best episodes so far setting the scene for the return of Megatron.

Highlights include featuring every Transformer character except Lockdown and Soundwave. None of the characters are too annoying either except for maybe Optimus struggling to control his subordinates.

[GoktimusPrime]

SPOILERS AHOY




Sari treating the key like a toy again was really annoying, and also counteractive against previously established development for this character - it's like she just returned to square one. While I could sympathise with Sari's point about having successfully defended the key thus far and about how Optimus Prime should respect her more as part of the team, the fact that she'd just used the key to create toy planes really didn't help her case much. I thought that she was over the whole "key = toy" thing, but evidently not... and that really sucked IMO.

Optimus Prime being so flawed was simultaneously frustrating and interesting to watch. He's was cracking under the pressure/burden of leadership and really didn't cope well at all... but what annoyed me was his sheer stubbornness, which I found was quite out of character for Optimus Prime who'd previously had never been portrayed as being so hard-headed and unwilling to listen to others. So unfortunately he came off as being more irritating than interesting. G1 comic Prime and Optimus Primal were far more interesting as flawed leaders because when they made mistakes it wasn't out of character. There was a lack of decent exposition to explain why Prime felt the need to chew everyone in his team out. It was almost like he was having PMS. (o_O)

Bulkhead was pretty good in this episode, I must say. For once he wasn't portrayed as being moronic. I liked the way he settled the tension between Prime and Prowl and also backed Prowl up when he was dealing with the Dinobots - it showed that Bulkhead was thinking... something which he hasn't done a lot of up till now. I really hope that Bulkhead will get further developed as a thoughtful character.

Sadly I can't say the same for the Dinobots, who once again were portrayed as being stupid savages. *SIGH*

Ratchet was good. It was good how he acted as a kind of moral counterbalance for Prime when he was freaking out, even though Prime didn't heed his advice. His heroic stand against Blitzwing and Lugnut was really cool.

Bumblebee was also interesting... his attitude toward authority is very Generation Y-esque.

The Decepticons in this episode reminded me of most of the Decepticons from the live action movie - lots of cool fighting, but not much character focus. The exception to this was Blackarachnia, who was the best written Decepticon character in this episode IMO.

The scene where Starscream thought that Lugnut was being subservient toward him was amusing.

The animation sequence for Megatron's reformatting was really nicely done. "Teeeeetttssssuuuuooooo!"

Not a fantastic episode, but not bad either. It is one of the better episodes in this series... but erm... that's not saying much. ;p

[Pulse]

I just plain lurved this episode. IMO, These Decepticon episodes are 1000% better than the Human-Villain episodes. Megs being reborn - Awesomeness re-defined! Of all the characters, Blackarachnia is my favourite by far & this episode just re-affirmed it (Are they suggesting all she needs is the key & she'll become Elita One again?).

Great Episode = 10/10

[kup]

I liked this episode, something that this series has proven is that it can handle Decepticons very well (with the exception of the first Blackarachnia episode which was crap IMO). Its a real shame that the Decepticon episodes are fairly rare and the bulk of the series are these really absurd and stupid episodes which bring down the overall series into lame territory.

I have taken a bit of a habit of skipping down to Decepticon episodes since they are well done and most of the narrative happens in them since the rest are mostly realy dumb filler episodes.

I mostly agree with what Gok said in his review but having Prime portrayed as an incompetent leader didn't affect me as much because this version of the character is something else entirely different to previous Prime/Primal incarnations. However strangely enough this is the first time that his character was properly explored and it didn't come out too good as this is the first time we get to see inside him as leader and it was portrayed negatively.

[i_amtrunks]

Anyone else here think that BlackArachnia has a very big part to play in part 2?

It was a good episode, other than the Sari and key issue Gok already raised, the writing was strong, Prime cracking, Ratchet being the voice of reason, as well as his stand against far stronger opposition, Starscream being Starscream, Bulkhead and Prowl made for a good episode.

Prowl not telling Prime about the Dinobots was odd, I thought for sure that he would have told him already.

Bumblebee still irks me though, but at least his little hissy fit was true to his character as well.

[GoktimusPrime]

These Decepticon episodes are 1000% better than the Human-Villain episodes.

Yeah, but that's not hard. Lame human villains from G1 like the Robot Master and Lord Chumley are a lot better than the human villains in Animated!

having Prime portrayed as an incompetent leader didn't affect me as much because this version of the character is something else entirely different to previous Prime/Primal incarnations. However strangely enough this is the first time that his character was properly explored and it didn't come out too good as this is the first time we get to see inside him as leader and it was portrayed negatively.

What gets me about Prime in this episode has nothing to do with G1 Prime or Optimus Primal - the problem is that it seemed out of character for Animated Prime. In no other episode do I recall Animated Prime being so short-fused, stubborn and hard-headed nor hostile toward his comrades. He was a lot more forgiving with Sentinel Prime, who's an absolute jerk.

Optimus Prime's characterisation in this episode seemed quite out of character and all this angst seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. The concept of Prime freaking out under pressure like this isn't a bad idea, but I thought that the execution wasn't well done.

Compare this with the time G1 Prime flipped out - it was something that was steadily building with Ratchet's reported death being the straw that broke the camel's back, pushing Prime over the edge. In Beast Wars we once saw Optimus Primal having a tantrum and smashing his fists against the Maximal base doors - again, due to mounting pressure against him and triggered by Megatron's acquisition of the Nemesis and the death of Tigerhawk (especially so soon after losing Depth Charge). Or even in Beast Machines when there was tension built between Optimus Primal and Cheetor shortly after Cheetor's stint as acting commander and resolved by the turn of the season. All of these Optimuses (Optimi?) flipped out during times of very heightened stress with something acting as a trigger to provoke the flip-out.

Animated Prime was faced with a bunch of largely ineffectual human villains and two active Decepticons - he knew that Starscream and Blackarachnia were at large, but the others are presumed to be inactive - Lugnut and Blitzwing were thoroughly trounced by the Ark's weaponry and would've probably died if Starscream hadn't repaired them, which Prime was not aware of. And Starscream and Blackarachnia had been unheard of in a long time, so it wasn't as if there was an immediate mounting threat from them at that time - not enough that justified him totally freaking out IMO.

The idea of Prime feeling frustrated and showing/venting that frustration is fine - but I thought that in execution it was really over the top, especially considering that Prime allowed his emotions to sever the Autobots' friendship with Sari and also lose some respect from Bumblebee. His stubbornness thwarted Prowl's plan to recruit the Dinobots (although being so dim-witted I'm unsure if Prowl's plan would've worked - but Prime's interference certainly didn't help) and essentially allowed the Decepticons to seize the key and ressurect Megatron.

The basic idea is sound, but I just feel that Prime needed greater justification for his emotional breakdown. It just felt like Prime suddenly became a d**kwad just because the plot needed him to be one, but failed to provide sufficient justification for him being one.

[MV75]

Seemed pretty much in character to me.

Sari wasn't cooperating and couldn't really understand as well as prime does the absolute danger she was in while holding the key. He had to step in and act as the "parent" instead of the "friend" to resolve the situation.

The dinobots existence and goings on behind his back without being informed totally mowed down his authority.

And bumblebee disobeying direct orders and thus ignoring him as a leader added to it too.

So he's got the weight of saving the galaxy from the decepticons while in charge of the all spark on his shoulders, while surrounded by insubordination.

I think it was very in character for Animated Prime.

Oh yes, and seeing cybertron mode megatron again, man, that is awesome beyond awesome. I'm really liking megatron the most. Now we just have to wonder what causes him to get an earth mode. My guess is that dinobots turn up at the last second.........
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[Pulse]

Animated Prime questioning his leadership really brought back comparisons to Rodimus. It's like they've taken Animated Optimus & channelled the spirit of Rodimus within him.

Not a great move writers, not a great move at all.

[MV75]

I thought it more like that noone was taking him seriously as a leader.
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[GoktimusPrime]

The problem is a clash of mindsets. Animated Prime - in this episode (and I've not seen evidence of it in previous episodes) was going by the old school authoritarian model of leadership that was common amongst pre-Generation Xers (e.g.: Baby Boomers) - how often have we heard stories about "when I was your age we never spoke back to parents/teachers etc" - and that was true. People in authority were given absolute respect without question. This is the kind of respect that Ratchet, the old timer, was willing to give to Prime. Prowl was trying to be respectful to, in line with the kind of "oriental" martial culture that the character is set in - yes, he kept Dinobot Island a secret, but he was never openly insolent toward Optimus about it.

Sari and Bumblebee are more representative of the attitudes towards authority that we see amongst Generation Y where respect toward authority is not automatically endowed but must be earnt. The whole "that's an order!" line just doesn't work in a post Vietnam War & Watergate western culture.

Sari wasn't cooperating and couldn't really understand as well as prime does the absolute danger she was in while holding the key. He had to step in and act as the "parent" instead of the "friend" to resolve the situation.

And Sari's selfishness was something else that really annoyed me. I thought that we had moved on from Sari being the selfish brat that treated the key as a toy. Her moment of selfishness felt like a massive step backwards in Sari's character growth.

But Prime ordering Ratchet to forcibly confiscate the key from Sari was a mistake - something that Ratchet wanted to tell Prime, but knew that Prime wasn't in the mood to listen, so he just bit his lip and followed Prime's order. I can understand why Prime wanted to confiscate the key, but forcibly removing it wasn't good. The Animated Prime I know would've counselled Sari and verbally convinced her to surrender the key to him without humiliating her.

The dinobots existence and goings on behind his back without being informed totally mowed down his authority.

Not if he listened to Prowl's motives for doing it. Prime had ordered the Dinobots to be destroyed because he wasn't aware that they had been imbued with sparks and had become living Transformers. I can totally understand Prime being upset with Prowl for not confiding in him with the secret of the Dinobots sooner, but I think it was over the top for Prime to go so far as to undermine everything Prowl was saying just because of that.

It reeked of, "I can't believe you didn't tell me this before, so from now on I'm not going to listen to anything you have to say! Nyah nyah nyah!" Yes, Prowl should have told you sooner, but that doesn't mean that his opinions are completely invalid and don't warrant being heard! It was like his decisions were being clouded by his anger at Prowl for having wrong him... he took it so personally, and it effected his leadership.

It's fine for Prime to express his anger at Prowl and reprimand him for not having consulted with him about the Dinobots before - I have no problem with that. What I have a problem with is how Prime allowed this anger to interfere with his actions, something which I find entirely out of character for Animated Prime. How many times has Bumblebee annoyed the crap out of Prime and he never allowed that to cloud his judgement? And as I mentioned before, Sentinel Prime was a complete A-hole during that flashback with them and Elita-One, yet Prime remained cool and collected, particularly when it came to saving Sentinel jerk-face. And when he met Blackarachnia, who blamed Optimus for her predicament, despite the fact that Optimus didn't intentionally mean to abandon her and wouldn't have if he'd known that she was still functional - he remained collected and offered to help Blackarachnia.

Prime's anger and frustration in this episode just seemed unnecessarily over the top with no seeming series of events to trigger it.

Oh yes, and seeing cybertron mode megatron again, man, that is awesome beyond awesome. I'm really liking megatron the most.

...man Dr. Sumdac is such a freakin' moron. Even when the Decepticons busted into the lab he kept working on Megatron's body and didn't even begin suspecting a thing until Lugnut stated that Megatron was the leader of the Decepticons. (-_-) Now I really understand Meltdown's beef with him - he's a dumb@$$ who just got a lucky break.

As for Animated Megatron... he's been a fairly interesting villain thus far. Having a body gives him potential to be a far more deadly villain, but time will tell in terms of how menacing the writers will make him. I'm hoping that he's going to be a more intelligent villain (like Beast Wars/Machines Megatron) rather than just being a big thug.

I really like Animated Megatron's voice - even more than I like BW/BM Megatron's voice! BW/BM Megatron is still my favourite Megatron, but Animated Megatron has my favourite Megatron voice.

Corey Burton manages to do a far better English accent than David Kaye (whose attempt at giving BW/BM Megatron a "British" accent frequently slipped all over the place - although the actual voice itself was still very cool). Burton also voiced Shockwave in G1 who had a rather English sounding accent iirc - and I think Burton has carried that accent onto Animated Megatron, but given it a far more menacing tone.

Saving Megatron till this point and gradually introducing him as a villain has been interesting to watch and there's obviously a lot of expectations from fans now that he's going to be really cool. Here's hoping that he can live up to our expectations.