that’s fair, I should have been more clear, if did not know some of the characters previously, I would be a lot more likely to like a particular character. For example, if I did not know how Ironhide or Soundwave were supposed to sound, I wouldn’t have any reason to complain.
Transformers has made their fair share of media without a decent story, take the live action films for example, so in some ways I can forgive a trash story, but I cannot forgive rewriting and reinventing classic characters that needed no change.
I don’t see how previous examples of trash are to be used to excuse further trash stories. The Bay movies should be used to criticize further stuff. We need to get better, not settle for worse.
Agreed. What they did with Optimus, Bumblebee, Elita-One, Ratchet, Ultra Magnus, and myriads of others was horrendous. Why do the rogue Deceptions seem more heroic than the actual heroes? It’s ridiculous.
I can only think of one example in Transformers where a rogue bad guy turning good was actually done well: that was Dinobot in Beast Wars. This show does not hope to even come near the level of quality writing that Season 2-3 Beast Wars had. (Though the animation hurts my eyes less for the new show, Beast Wars actually was more dynamic and thus was more engaging to watch despite all the characters having the texture of polished poo.)
I just watched the first episode just now while I did some other stuff. Keep in my mind I’m not well versed in Transformers, I was pretty into Transformers Animated and Prime when I was younger, and that’s kind of it, so I might have missed a few things.
This episode didn’t leave a great first impression.
Animation wasn’t great. It’s not the worst I’ve seen, but it looks clunky and off putting. Bumblebee’s design is kinda of blegh to me too.
Optimus throwing a hissy fit at his friends seemed a bit meh, and unlike the Optimus I’m used to. But maybe I missed something on this.
The voice acting was not great either. Just like with the animation, it’s not the worst I’ve heard, but it’s still not good.
Also I was shocked to see that Rooster Teeth is producing this. They’re already a trash company, so seeing this shouldn’t have been a surprise, but wow.
My surround sound speaker system turned off halfway through, making it difficult to understand what was going on, and I had no desire to make the minimal effort to turn the speakers back on.
I should not have used the michael bay films as an example, in its stead I will replace it with transformers prime. It didn’t really have an end goal in mind… it was just three seasons of random misadventures, unlike transformers generation 1; they needed to collect energon to get off of the planet . In many ways I feel the siege show has no real goal or objective. Its true that the objective of siege was to obtain the all-spark and get it out of the hands of the decepticons… but everything else that happened was incidental.
In the end, I liked the aesthetic of the show, but the animation itself was obviously shipped straight in from the cheapo depot. I think optimus prime only transformed twice… they were super lazy. The voice of soundwave made me wish I was dead could have been better.
But yeah… we can all agree that Elita-1 is trash, Ultramagnus is a terrible soldier, Optimus is indecisive and a terrible leader, and Bumblebee is the lead role AGAIN.
unlike…? You are aware that G1 was practically the prototypical 80s monster of the week toyline cartoon? I feel like I’m misunderstanding you somehow, what are you saying?
its true, G1 obviously had no continual storyline really, but it had a goal and objective that was very clear, earth had energon and they (the decpticons) needed energon to leave.
This siege storyline came across as chaotic and inconsistent, If I didn’t give it 100% of my attention, I had no idea what was going on.
a minor correction, in the beginning of the G1 continuity, Energon wasn’t the standard energy that Transformers needed to survive. They could work fine with any energy that we humans can produce today. Energon cubes was just the decepticon’s newly developed way to easily transport all the energy they had stolen.
as the franchise continued, this changed of course.
Well, with all these grievances, I feel it’s appropriate to ask this: what specific things would you do to change the story and why would it be better than what we were given?
I do not mean any offense by this question but I am curious as to what you would want to see done with the Siege series and even the franchise as a whole.
I’m not really sure the story itself was bad. It had several interesting ideas. But it was told in a bad way. You look at the plot points and I can see why they greenlit the series. You look at the execution and I wonder who is at fault.
Prime being a conflicted leader, only ever done effectively in Animated. This drops the ball, but that was still a good idea. Using the All Spark to reformat the Autobots is an interesting use of that MacGuffin and an ample threat, BUT it’s the All Spark again. Why couldn’t Shockwave just have some sort of thing that could do that anyway? Characters aren’t written well most of the time, outside of maybe Wheeljack and Impactor.
I think the overall concepts present are good, they’re just not executed properly. The scripts needed a few more passes, maybe four more episodes (at least) to help develop the characters, and the voice direction needed work. The art style is great IMO, but the animation is often lackluster and slow, but this is obviously a budget show, so maybe that shouldn’t really be that much of a complaint. Although Cyberverse also seems like a budget show and it’s done battle scenes better (not MUCH better, but better).
And what about this made it an Anime? Because the animation was partially handled by a Japan studio? Didn’t seem to use the usual tropes or gimmicks that style is known for, so…
I don’t understand why transformers decided to have two shows aimed at different age groups going on simultaneously. Transformers should put all of their show budget into a show entertaining enough for kids and serious enough for teens. The film “The Incredibles” did a good job of making a kids film with some more serious topics thrown in.
right now transformers has 5 primary outlets of toys, masterpeice, bot bots, cyberverse, studio series, and WFC. They should streamline their toylines down to maybe 3.
If their fan base is shrinking and they have multiple lines going on to keep fans interested, they need a new strategy. Quality is priority 1, not quantity. If they completely cut out bot bots and cyberverse, that would open up their budget to make media for the other lines better.
So, as someone who is tired of Transformers so focused on being serious that it’s boring and retreading G1, I take it this new show won’t be my cup of tea.
IDW Prime was a more unconventional take on the character. For those who don’t know, John Barber’s later run of the series made Optimus Prime a well meaning leader who made very questionable mistakes for the greater good and really deconstructed his role of as a paragon father-like leader.
His questionable actions included:
Annexing Earth as the 13th colony (hopefully fixing many of the Earth’s problems, but done without the world leaders’ consent)
Blackmailing Soundwave
Used a colony’s religious belief that he’s the reincarnation of the 13th Prime as political power
Letting a surrendered (and a possibly reformed) Megatron co-captain the Lost Light, albeit under supervision.
Now, obviously this was a highly controversial portrayal, but I found a well-meaning but flawed OP far more interesting than the million Primes who are just stoic, give speeches and nothing more.
Was going to say the same. I am already a weeb so I wouldn’t have cared, but when it said it was an anime at the beginning of the episode it honestly just left me confused. Were they hoping anime fans would be more interested if they just slapped that at the beginning?
