I thought I had posted this a few days ago. I didn't get any notice saying the post was moved to another thread or deleted, it just doesn't exist anymore which is kinda weird. The original topic was suppose to have been posted on my birthday (March 6) and I asked two questions in it. First, how have your opinions for Prime changed sense the Premiere, if at all? For me, I was very disappointed with this series till Convoy. The show was showing signs early on of bad writing, bad character development, bad animation, bad character design, and basically else you can possible think of to put in the worst Transformers cartoon ever. HOWEVER I believe in giving the series a fair chance to see if it improves as the series goes on before delivering final judgment. Even now this is not a final judgment on the series because it's still new it could just as easily get worse again as it got better for one episode. Going down the list. Bad Writing: The show started out telling the story as if we were watching a continuation of another story, one which was never told. It's suppose to be a continuation of WFC as the reason for this, the stories are very similar but there are plot holes I can drive a truck threw. The "Megatron changing alt modes" doesn't actually explain away why he has a different alt mode in the game because his flash back in the show doesn't show that alt mode it shows the exact same form that he's currently using and non of the characters have ever seen Dark Energon before even though in the game they have all seen it with the exception of Bulkhead who isn't even in the WFC game. 2. Bad Character Development: Worst was it seemed for a while there every episode was going to consist of killing off the new guy before we even get a chance to learn anything about the new guy. Kinda like not having them there at all only the entire episode revolve around that one character and not in a good way. They actually end up taking screen time away from the main plot to bring you silliness that doesn't go anywhere but still ends end filling the majority of the episode. Like the science projects that took up more screen time than Skyquake did. This cycle has been broken however as Wheeljack actually managed to survive his episode but a con who looked like him had to die without really knowing who he was. They made a really interesting character who can mimic other robots but other than that ability we know nothing about him. 3. Bad Animation: Now in the first few episodes their faces seemed rather plain, fixed, and uninteresting. Optimus Prime especially has a very flat expressionless face with not so much as a nose to add any bit of detail to it. Oddly enough they all have these weird eye brows and with nothing else to look at but that I find myself staring at them, I mean they're HUGE but in the first few episodes barely moved though at that size even subtle movements look huge. Also I've noticed little to no detail in the backgrounds on this show. Just a cast of few on big empty spaces. As the series progresses however the animation seems to have gotten better or I've just gotten use to the eye brows so that I'm not staring at them so much. Anyway I have notice Prime has some detail to his face though it's small and I wish it'd take up more of the blank area than just the corners of his chin. Ratchet I have noticed lately that he has either panel lines on his face or a scar under one eye, I'm not quite sure, some times it looks smooth some times it looks like a scar, some times it's on both sides of his face, I have no idea what it is. As for back grounds, well it still seems to be filled with only what's needed to act as a plot device and the rest is big empty space. (I get the feeling the scenery budget for this show is being spent on the animation models for the guys they killed.) 4. Bad Character Design: Hey lets take the worst ever Transformers designs and combine all of their worst design aspects and see what we come up with. It could be worse though. At least Optimus has his signature helmet + Mouth plate unlike that Beast Machines Optimus. Anyway... What really changed for me in Convoy was that the plot introduced a new human villain who was both interesting and may actually pose a serious threat in the future. Something that is rare in any Transformers cartoon, threatening human villains. Animated of course had Meltdown who I would love to see in Prime. Also Animated had "Headmaster" who technically is a Transformer in his own right but was never seen to his full potential in the cartoon or the toy line. Headmaster doesn't even transform in the toy line but he does have a robot mode that was briefly seen in the cartoon. Now if Headmaster had been a more threatening character, not about his ability as a Transformer, but because the character was portrayed as noob gamer he was never a real threat. I'd like to see a Headmaster character fully realized, I'd actually like to see Silas use his technology and the scans he took of Optimus Prime to design his own Headmaster unit. This leads me to my second question, what human villains would you like to see in Transformers: Prime. And by the way, I never really like human villains in G1 as they were usually not villains at all but just misguided people who were too stupid to tell Autobots apart from Decepticons except for Old Snake but I never liked G.I. Joe. Anyway... for my list... Angry Archer I don't see as ever being any real threat unless they give the name to another Transformer rather than a human. Colossus Rhodes I think could be a bigger threat than he was in Animated. He's basically a rip off of Bane from Batman though and I'd rather he didn't exist at all. Nanosec was no threat and I don't know how he ever could be. He just runs fast, big deal. Professor Princess I'd like to forget ever existed but I have myself re-imagined her as a horse Transformer who is crazy and named her beast mode Powdered Sugar. Think BW Megatron petting his T-Rex head in robot mode but much more extreme. Master Disaster is another possibility for Silas after his scans of Optimus Prime. Also I really liked him but I keep forgetting about him because he only got one episode. Slo-mo has potential but don't like her fast talking, reminds me of a female Blurr which is kinda misleading with the name. Oddly though there have actually been Transformers with her exact powers, namely G1 Elita-One and Heinrad from Beast Wars Neo. (who also made a cameo in RID but not as a Transformer.) Elita-One doesn't really make sense as her name and design have nothing to do with time but Heinrad actually had a working clock built into his beast mode. (Not kidding I seen a review of his toy, he actually can double as a working alarm clock and it works really well because you have to get up and transform him to get to the switch that shuts the alarm off.) And of course there's Headmaster and Meltdown who I've already mentioned. Also if there's ever a Fallen in this series I think it would be cool to see Meltdown vs. The Fallen. Given that Fallen is always on fire I think he'd be the only Transformer who is actually immune to Meltdown's powers. Another interesting idea would be if the Fallen actually absorbed Meltdown into his Spark so that they became one character for a while. Would make for an interesting plot if Fallen was stuck trying to find a way to get this human out of his Spark and what if separating from the Fallen actually returned Meltdown to his normal human state rather than the mutated form he would of been in when he got absorbed? Further the story even more, Meltdown tries to recreate the accident that caused him mutation in the first place in an attempt to get his powers back.
Going down the list. What? Seriously? Bad writing? Maybe Optimus is a bit couped up but everyone else is on the spot. Especially Starscream. It's been 8 episodes and we already have an Arcee with more personality than all her incarnations in the past 20 years combined. Give me a break. They also killed two characters. One of which was the series opening shocker, one was a one off villain, and the other was disposable con villain with a name that would be impossible to keep around as a serious character. They'll get to building the cast. It takes a while for a show to start up you know. And Prime =/= WFC no matter how you slice it. It's similar continuity family that Hasbro wants to shove into a single continuity via branding, but it's far from it. Also the point is to dump you somewhere along the story. The show is going to stick around for a while and will reveal its past in time. Your only valid complaint. It's getting better, but it's no Clone Wars yet. This is Entirely subjective. Hey lets make some of the best Transformers designs and combine it with some neat style and see what toys come out of it! That's what the series says to me. If you ask me the Alternators have some of the worst character designs. I bet that angers a good few people. God forbid new character iterations change it up once in a while. I would like to see new villains. This series lives enough in its own past as it is.
Clone Wars is the exception, not the rule. This show's animation is pretty damn good considering it's the studio's first production.
I liked Angry Archer and Headmaster, but the rest and burn with Brawl and Blackout. But I hope no human villains (aside the ones from 'Convoy') in Prime.
The writing is decent, but it isn't stunning. The episodes are all hit and miss so far, but Convoy is by far the BEST. Prime hit a winning feel with this one. Just gotta keep it up. Lots of tension, and a villain that's just as nasty as Megatron, but in human form! As for the characters, I love it. Sure as hell not like the silly 80s block-bots that G1 are. Right?
If we're going to have human villains, I think Silas is a good example. A terrorist force, using military weapons, rather than Teen Titan-esque supervillains who somehow win fistfights with Transformers. Even for a series about alien giant robots, there are limits in terms of what you can expect an audience to believe.
That's character development not plot. Your response here should really be down below. In case you didn't notice I wasn't complaining about the main cast but rather the characters they seem to toss in there just to be killed off the moment they're introduced with no real purpose. I mean at this point I'd rather see someone in the main cast get killed off rather than more new characters. At least a main cast member will actually have a death with a purpose rather than their entire purpose being to die. That's three characters, Cliffjumper, Skyquake, and Makeshift. And I still question if the cast will ever be built up as the only character who hasn't died still hasn't joined the main cast but at least he can come back for future episodes so there's still hope for him at least. This is exactly why the plot is so bad. A good plot always has a beginning, a middle, and an end. This story had no beginning. And in many cases so far they've told stories with no middle that being introduce new character then kill him. Beginning and End, no substance in the middle. All my complaints are valid. And BTW I don't like Clone Wars animation because the characters are overly cartoony for the kind of plots that go with Star Wars and it's hard to take the show seriously when they look like that but at least the backrounds are filled out more than the backgrounds in Prime which barely exist at all. Yes and no. That entirely depends on "I hate this because it's different" vs. "I hate this because insert list of valid reasons here." For example, you don't like alternators? Why because Optimus Prime has a different alt mode than you're use to? Transformers change their alt mode appearances all the time he still looks like Optimus Prime weather he's a truck, a monkey, a car, or a freaking tank. It doesn't matter. Hell even when he's black and purple he still looks like Optimus Prime. The fact is there's a limit to exactly how much you can change a character's appearance before it's no longer recognizable as that character anymore. Going threw my most hated TF designs, TM2 Cheetor. It's in his name that he's suppose to be a cheetah but his TM2 form doesn't even have any indication that he is a cheetah. That thing was so freaking ugly I'm not even sure it was a cat. In that respect his Beast Machines design was just about the only Maximal I actually liked. Primal actually looked the worst because his design had absolutely no elements from any of his past designs. Sure he had his Gorilla beast mode that he'd been in all threw Beast Wars but as alt mode has nothing to do with recognizing that character he could of just as easily been B'Boom. And I'm actually one of the rare people who liked Beast Machines overall. I just didn't like the Maximal character designs or the fact that Rhinox turned evil. Moving onto the movies which seemed to repeat the same mistakes from Beast Machines we get more unrecognizable characters. Oh and to make matters worse their logic was more realistic transformations which actually turned out LESS realistic. More on that later. Now I don't care that Bumblebee is a Camero and not a VW. People who complain about that are just complaining for the sake of complaining. No valid complaint can come out of "He's not a VW" no my issues with him are the robot mode. They remodeled his head into something that not only doesn't look like Bumblebee but doesn't even look like a Transformer. To be perfectly honest, I don't like him because he has no face not because he's different, he has no freaking face. That's a very valid complaint right there and no face is different from face plate. I actually like Bumblebee's face plate because it covers up the fact that there's no freaking face under it. Seriously if you look at him all that's there is what looks to me like the exposed innards of his face, like Optimus Prime ripped his face off. None of the other Autobots in the movie look like that, they all have faces, they're weird faces but they're faces. Now on the Decepticon side, they don't even look like they're from the same planet as the Autobots. Bayverse Decepticons have very insectoid type faces that really look like they belong in an entirely different movie and allot of them genuinely look like they were ripped off from other movies. I see more aspects of Terminator, Star Wars Droids, and Bionicles in the designs than I do Transformers. Bay even admitted to stealing designs from Terminator Salvation to fill the generic robots in ROTF of course both movies were being edited in the same building. Hasbro actually redesigned allot of the movie's merchandice with versions of the characters that actually look like the character they were suppose to be portraying such as the alternate head mold for the "Starscream" toys that actually look like Starscream instead of looking like Waspinator. Now the transformations, they're suppose to look like they can actually transform except that there's no way they can transform the way they do in the movies without defying the laws of physics. They got rid of mass shifting for exactly that same reason but how is mass shifting any more silly than transformers that break up into hundreds of little pieces and reassemble themselves without any sign of breaking what so ever. If they actually transformed like they do in the movies their vehicle modes would like they went threw a shredder. Hasbro can't even make toys that are 100% accurate without some amount of cheating involved because it's so unrealistic as to be laughable. I mean Bumblebee's license plate and gas tank end up on his crotch which simply isn't possible without defying the laws of physics. Mass shifting was actually more believable. I mean there are things in real life that grow and shrink but I've never seen anything that could pass threw a solid object and allot of the transformations require things being able to pass threw solid objects in order to work. Moving onto Animated we get not so much as the designs are bad but rather the animation style is bad. The characters were in many cases actually MORE recognizable as their original incarnations than other series but still looked like garbage because of the disproportionate design aspects, in other words, huge upper bodies, tiny heads with big chins, and thin little legs. Looks like it was made for 5 year olds. I loved Animated but I hated the animation, just hated it. I'd love to see Animated characters stylized more traditionally and in a way we're getting that with Generations Lugnut but I want to see more like that. Now this brings us to Prime. Prime gives us the same disproportions from Animated while removing everything else that actually made Animated worth watching and replacing that with the worst aspects of the Bayverse. Now I will admit Prime does have it's up sides though few but growing. I mean I was impressed with Arcee and Bulkhead. Bulkhead is actually a more interesting character than his Animated counterpart. At first I thought it was going to be the same thing but they've actually played down his clumsiness quite a bit and made him smarter than the Animated version. Arcee is actually a much nicer design than either of her movie counterparts or for that matter anyone else in Prime. Still can't tell how the heck she transforms but I like her enough that I might actually buy her toy. I've never bought an Arcee toy before and the only other one I would of they didn't make one for though I understand there is a third party making G1 Arcee's now. Anyway, to some it up, I don't hate the new designs "because they're different", BW, RID, Armada, Energon, and Cybertron were all different and I've loved their designs. BM, Bayverse, Animated, and Prime are just really bad designs. Well it is a Transformers series and while new villains would be appreciated. (technically already got one, hello Silas.) that doesn't mean we can't also have some old villains. I mean it can't be ENTIRELY new or it wouldn't be a retelling of Transformers it'd be an ENTIRELY new series completely unrelated to the Transformers franchise. I never really saw Transformers as just being Autobots Vs. Decepticons and getting old because the Autobots and Decepticons are always entirely different groups of individuals. It's not like watching Superman vs. Lex Luthor over and over again in the movies. Come on Superman films, Bizzarro, Brainiac, Dark Side, Metallo, Doomsday, ANYONE but freaking Lex Luthor. Superman movies aren't as popular as Batman because Batman doesn't just fight the Joker in every movie, there are actually other villains. Though looking at the Autobots recently... Movie, Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Ratchet, Ironhide, Jazz. Animated, Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Ratchet, Bulkhead, Prowl. Prime, Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Ratchet, Bulkhead, Arcee. That's why it's getting stale, the main cast of Autobots has been nearly the same cast sense 2007. ROTF was our big break from this rinse and repeat. Decepticons have been different every time but they mainly seem to just focus on Starscream now days. I mean Megatron is there too but he was Frozen for most of the first movie, spent the first season of Animated as a Severed Head, and again in Prime has been temporarily removed from the series. So they've been doing near exact repeats of the same stuff for the last 4 years. Hell I'm surprised Prime doesn't have an AllSpark plot device... oh wait Dark Energon. Of course not like the Unicron trilogy was any better. Collect Mini-cons, Collect Energon, Collect Cyber Planet Keys. Wait non of these are plots these are sales pitches and they're all the same.
We're only 9 episodes in so far, so we haven't given much focus on a plot as they want to give us a good idea of characters and their traits. Some of the best written TF series didn't start at the beginning (Beast Wars).
Starting in the middle is a huge storytelling misstep? Geez, I guess nobody told Homer or John Milton. I guess that that also makes Star Wars, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and the Unusual Suspects awful movies as well. Oh wait...t's called in medias res. Just give it some time, don't jump the gun. Jeff Kline has stated in numerous interviews that they're planning on doing some flashback stuff. Sounds to me like your biggest problem with the show is your own impatience.
Obviously you've never actually seen Beast Wars or at least never saw the pilot. It didn't start in the middle of the plot it started like every other series except for Prime with the Transformers just arriving on Earth. Even RID started out that way without really showing it but rather explaining it but at least RID didn't go oh yeah we've been here for years but have apparently been doing nothing of any particular interest till this very moment like Prime has done. It was said they had been on Earth already for 5 years and we're really expected to believe that they were running around that long, made contact with Earth military, and some how in all that time there was nothing worth actually SHOWING in the series until the moments that Cliffjumper dies? Nope that's not bad writing at all. And Star Wars is a bad example because George Lucas actually wrote the movies intending to shoot them in order and while I'm not sure what stopped him, I've heard multiple different stories about that from, no studio would fund the first movie but apparently wanted to fund the 4th film to technology at that time was advanced enough to shoot the first 3 movies as intended. And at least with 2 and 3 I can see why, the fight scenes with Yoda would look horrible with a puppet. Anyway A New Hope was good enough on it's own that we didn't NEED to see the backstory for Darth Vader, that's all the first 3 movies really were was Anikin becoming Darth Vader. Not really starting in the middle there. The first 3 movies is more like a separate story on it's own that takes place in the same continuity before a story we already seen. I just don't buy, we've been here for 5 years doing nothing, as a good beginning to a series. They had to of been doing something during that time. You can make up for 5 hours without really showing it and get away with it but 5 years, that's just insane. Finally how am I impatient? I said this was no where near a final judgment, this is just what I think of the series "so far", can't you read? If I were being impatient I would of stopped watching this series after the first episode. Fact is I will continue to watch this series till the end, just because it started off bad doesn't mean it'll stay that way. Beast Machines had a similar start leaving a big gap between the end of Beast Wars and the start of Beast Machines that left me going WTF but I actually watched the series to the end and love it. Most people hate Beast Machines but I rather doubt they've really seen it unless they have a valid reason for hating beyond "The designs suck" and "Cybertron is not organic!" That's just "I hate it because it's different" which is the majority of the complaints I hear about Beast Machine. There's been maybe 3 people who have had valid BM complains that I didn't agree with but at least they were more than just "it's different" and I can at least respect that. Speaking of which, claiming my reasons for not liking Prime aren't valid, accusing me of not liking it just because it's different, and accusing me of impatience is not very respectful and sounds like you're putting me down just because you have a different opinion and this is your way of telling me I'm not allowed to form an opinion of my own. This is why I rarely post online anymore, I can never speak my opinion without being insulted and it kinda defeats the purpose of a discussion if I have to just agree with everyone else or be insulted for having independent thought.
Not true at all. Star Wars was actually written as a stand alone film without even a thought as to a franchise until it neared completion. Nearly everyone (sole exceptions: George Lucas, Alec Guiness) involved with the film thought that it would tank, so no one even bothered with trying to plot it that far in advance. Contrary to popular belief, the original cut of the film didn't even have the "Episode IV" moniker in the original release/opening titles. Shoot, the orignal title of the film, used even during the shooting phase, was "Journal of the Whills, Saga I: The Star Wars." Not exactly indicative of a movie being planned as part 4 of a six-part saga. In fact, the original press release regarding TESB announced the film as Star Wars II. Something more: There's even evidence to support the idea that Lucas didn't even think come up with the idea of who Vader was until the second draft of TESB. Finally, remember Luke and Leia's kissing session? And her saying "Somehow, I've always known" Yeah, hardly something that would have been included if Lucas had really planned SW that far in advance.
Transformers Prme is a OK show but I wish they would release a new generation 1 series with g1 personalities and look but with new stories. Like how dreamwave and IDW did with the comic series.
I really want a War Within cartoon series. I want to see more of that Fallen, hated the movie version and the Comic version is really the first character outside of the cartoons and movies that I've ever really liked.
No, no human villains. I like my transformers to be far superior than the humans that are basically ineffectual like g1. Giant untouchable Titans that you need good titans to beat. Animated human villains were a joke In my eyes like the huge chins. Animated as a whole was too comical for me. It was like transformers meets teen titans I want to see autobots vs decepticons and I really, really, really hated the gi Joe crossover and how the transformers go down so easily on the movies. Cybertronions are gods compared to humans and that's how it should stay. I know I sound really against a human threat but I just love how the decepticons casualy cast us aside. If we could defend ourselves there would be Jo need for the autobots
I kind of like the idea of humans with powers that could pose a threat to the giant robots. I mean the human cast is always trying to be portrayed as "Let's help the Autobots" but really they just get in the way because they're squishy. Prime is actually doing a good job with humans... but in my opinion... failing everywhere else. I just like my humans to either add some real value to the show or not be there at all.
I still love the show, but I think the series' premieres first 5 episodes were far superior compared to the following episodes. I would have expected that they try to step up from that level.
