Cartoon review - Robots in Disguise (2015)

[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.

[griffin]

The Legion toys are the ones that I like the look of most when together on the shelf, even though most are not accurate to the cartoon. (the 3-steps are the most cartoon accurate, but I only have four of them so far)

Now that I've seen the episode with the Deployers and Minicons, it makes me wonder why TakaraTomy didn't pack in with their Fracture Deployer, the Minicon Divebomb. They are packing with Drift the two Minicons he had in that episode, but are packing with Fracture Sandsting instead of Divebomb.
Usually TakaraTomy are pretty good with these sorts of things for collectors, otherwise they wouldn't be releasing non-RID toys in the Adventure line and Combiners that match the Gen1 toys more than Hasbro did.

[Zommael]

So now that the whole first season is available, I have to ask: is it actually any good? The toys look remarkably dull, but the show might still have some hope - right?

[Paulbot]

The person that started this thread should have put a poll on it. Oh wait that was me!

Poll now added.

The series is good, very different to Prime (as far as I can tell) but enjoyable to watch.

[MayzaPrime]

I am enjoying the series, (9 episodes in) its ok. I really liked TF Prime and that series had me instantly hooked, I am hoping RID will eventually do the same.

[griffin]

I finished watching the season.... it was better than average. A lot better than TFPrime and most of the Unicron trilogy (to me).

One thing I don't like is how there is no unified Decepticon force, and as such, no real threat. (not a crushing threat like Beast Machines or TFPrime which has the Autobots/Maximals hiding most of the time)
I also don't find it very realistic that very few own guns (even the Autobots who are supposed to be the police force), and the guns that do show up don't do any damage on others (but can blow a massive hole through a thick bank safe).
It might look visually more interesting to have swords or fists, and pad out the episode more, but these are technologically advanced robots that can build spacebridges but not a gun.

I was disappointed to see Windblade show up just because the comic writer of Windblade is a writer on the show.... and look exactly like her IDW version, even though everyone else is a new version of their namesakes. The flashback version of her should have been what she looks like as her regular version. It's a year too late to sell the Generations toy, so it was an unnecessary inclusion in that form. Just like all the other characters in the cartoon, Windblade should have received a new visual form that could have been similar to a previous version, but not exact. Otherwise it causes confusion over possibly being a shared universe to the IDW comic universe.

Drift is another writer creation that is now looking to be a long-term character in Transformers... and despite being part of the main cast for the second half of the season, he didn't get included in the opening credits. The Autobot team is now twice as big as the start of the season, so hopefully new credits next year includes all the new members. (I would have liked to see Jazz return again as well, after a single episode at the start of the season.)

There were a couple of "laugh out aloud" moments in, but I think there could have been a little more humour. The Fixit glitches were more annoying than amusing, while Bumblebee's attempts at finding a motivating warcry got old fast. I think he should have found one by halfway in the season and just stuck with it.
Although, in one of the last two episodes he says "Let's roll to the rescue... no wait, that's already being used by someone" - which was funny because I watch Rescue Bots a lot to know what he was referring to.

Megatronus was interesting, but short-lived (unless like Beast Wars Inferno, a disintegration isn't real if it is done in the final episode of a season).
I was surprised that Frank Welker wasn't voicing him. The voice though sounded like the original Zordon from MMPR (to me).

The "Clash of the Transformers" ToysRUs store exclusive toyline concept featured in the final episode... well, aside from the inclusion of Megatronus (which is yet to show up as a regular toy in other stores). Three of the Autobots took on an "Allspark blue" deco, which I was surprised to see, but I guess was part of the agreement with ToysRUs to take on the exclusive toys... they coloured Strongarm instead of Optimus (the Clash Autobots were Optimus, Bumblebee & Sideswipe).
Speaking of selling specific toys, the upgrade for Optimus was definitely drawn to look like the Mega 3-step Optimus. They couldn't have been any more obvious if they had a flashing sign over his head when he first appeared saying, "buy the Mega 3-step Optimus toy".

Right at the end of the series we finally get something that could link this series to TFPrime - Unicron's essence being in the core of the Earth... but with multiple universes existing over the last 30 years, there could easily be another universe with Unicron as the core of Earth, it is not exclusive to this universe as evidence that this series is following on from TFPrime.
Actually, if I wanted to waste some time, I think it would be easy to prove that this series is more likely to be separate to TFPrime than actually a part of it, as there is more evidence against it than supporting it.
Like, when they were visiting the ghost town in episode 24, it was clearly Nevada, but Bumblebee didn't make any mention of them once having an old base nearby. Considering it was for most of his life on Earth, that would be a pretty significant thing to mention... and maybe get new viewers of this show to go find out what it was and then watch TFPrime as a result.


And finally, I am really tired of the "hiding from humans" concept, because it is spoiling the overall story potential. It makes the episodes less realistic when there are no humans anywhere, and the plot devices they come up with for some occasions are just stupid.
The name "robots in disguise" refers to their ability to transform into something else, which they do for mobility or for battle, not to hide from humans. The Decepticons don't have a need to stay hidden, so when there are hundreds or thousands of them running around, you can't tell me that not a single human sees them.
The concept of them being hidden from human society didn't last long in the movie universe (during TF2) because it wasn't practical for the story to maintain that idea... and in all seriousness, after three years of TFPrime having global battles and Decepticon warships flying around, humans would know about it. With the way our western media, social media and paparazzi works at finding all sorts of secrets we don't even need to know about, something as massive as an alien invasion of thousands of bots (in TFPrime) or hundreds (in RID), is going to be seen and shared.
Get it out in the open, and it will make the episodes more interesting as there won't be deserted cities or cringe-worthy reasons for no humans being around... and might even make them more of a threat element, as the Autobots will need to put in more effort saving them when Decepticons attack.

I know I know... it's only a cartoon. But really, kids aren't stupid - they should be wondering the same thing.

[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.