Considering it fits with the design aesthetic of the series and her animation model was even used in the series...

The big bad for season 2 was really boring and uninteresting to me. Why didn't they have Airachnid and her army of vampire zombie Insecticons in the series? I think it would of been great to see them return to the series.

Also wish they didn't kill the Predacons in a freak accident cause I would of really liked to see them make a return as well.

Any other loose ends from Prime you wish they had dealt with in the sequel?

 

I did enjoy Robots in Disguise, but it had more missed opportunities than people say Prime did.

Returning characters from Prime. We get no resolution for Megatron and his heel-face turn, he's just off in space while getting name-dropped a few times, and the fact that he disbanded the Decepticons is completely ignored. In fact, any character who was in Prime but didn't appear. Arcee, Smokescreen, Wheeljack, Knock Out, and Ultra Magnus could at least have cameo-ed in a crowd scene at the end of the finale, and Predaking (assuming he survived, really, the other two Predacons dying in a flashback is another missed opportunity in and of itself) and Shockwave could have done with some true resolution. Even characters from Prime who do return kind of get the shaft. Starscream gets a decent arc, but both him and Soundwave feel as though the series was in a hurry to get rid of them. Soundwave had one episode outside the Shadowzone in Season 3, with no explanation as to how and why he changed bodies or recruited some Mini-con assistants, and is gone within that same episode. Starscream fared slightly better, though it still would have been nice to see them recruited by the Council.

Exploring the apparent prejudice towards 'bots who don't conform to the two-to-three story tall, humanoid robot mode with a vehicular alternate form. You have the beastly 'bots lumped into groups like "Skunkticons" and "Crow Decepticons" with common stereotypes forced on them. The show's desire to keep things simple and safe hurts it the worst in this regard, in that it actually becomes problematic. The idea that common stereotypes can be forced on a particular group is a horrible message to send, even if it's not intentional. I don't think the creators intended to send this message, but it is there, particularly in the awful filler episodes of Season 3.

Grimlock's past. Admittedly, this is mainly because of my desire for the Aligned Continuity to, you know, align. I loved Prime, and I loved the Cybertron games, and I would have liked to see that version of Grimlock carry on into the series. I don't mind him being given comedic moments or becoming friendlier, that's what character development is for. In fact, I still enjoyed Grimlock's personality in RID. Still, even ignoring the Cybertron games, the fact that he was a criminal and a Decepticon is glossed over in the first two episodes and brought up in just one later episode, where we get just one throwaway line about why he was incarcerated. That's very unsatisfying for the backstory of one of the main characters.

The entire Council arc. No story arc in RID is handled well, but the council arc might be the worst example of handling a story arc that I've seen in Transformers. It commits the cardinal sin of having the main story occur away from the main characters. The interesting, important stuff is happening off screen, and instead of following it, we have some bad filler episodes, and some skirmishes involving the Stunticons, who appear out of nowhere with no real reason to show up (though they were enjoyable characters). The final season could have benefited if we saw the council beforehand, given Cyberwarp more time to build up her reservations, explore Cyclonus' motives, establish the other members as characters (did they even speak?), explain how they came to power, and explored their role in sending Soundwave and Steeljaw and everyone against Team Bee. The final two episodes, though fun, felt massively rushed for having to explain everything we didn't see.

Really, the missed opportunities all seem to stem from the biggest problem of RID: that it wanted to play things too safe and too simple and too black and white, at the expense of everything else. It didn't want to tackle the issues it was raising with the treatment of the Alchemor's criminals, with the corrupt Cybertronian council, or its connection to Prime.

 

RID never did much with the potential of being a sequel. I would have loved to have at least one episode where we met back up with some of the human cast from Prime to see how they have grown or moved along since the end of that series. It always struck me as strange that the Autobots never tried to establish contact with their old allies on Earth, where at least Fowler and his position could help them track down Decepticons.

I would have also liked an episode where Grimlock met up with his Fall of Cybertron incarnation and established them as two separate characters. It would be fun to see a traditional angry jerk version of Grimlock interact with a goofier, clumsier, easy-going version of him. Maybe have FoC Grimlock go looking for RIDlock because he heard a Con stole his name but by the end of the episode RIDLock demonstrates himself to be enough of an Autobot that FoC Grimlock is okay with him using his name or something along those lines.

 

Smokescreen didn't reappear, either in the show or comics and that kinda bugged me since he was my favorite of the bunch, ditto Arcee especially considering the rest of the gang got to show up. Also they never met the Prime humans which was insane considering Bee himself really cared about them in the show

 

I totally agree with everything you said regarding the stereotypes. The Crow Decepticons appeared twice in the series and I think the three brothers handled it a little bit better because they were smart enough to know what they were doing was wrong but Filtch really bothered me. She's was basically mentally challenged, not really what I'd call a criminal. She didn't understand that she was doing anything wrong, she just liked shiney things yet they treat her exactly the same as any other criminal.

Springload also has similar issues. He's trying to find a lost city that no one else in the series even seriously believes in. He only really attacks in self defence otherwise if you just leave him alone he's not actually a threat to anyone so why the heck is he a criminal?

Considering how close I am to real people with similar issues, my older brother is very similar to Fitch, it's very troublesome to me that someone with a mental disability is treated this way by the Autobots. G1 handled disabilities better than this with Chip Chase and that was in the 80's why in this day and age have we reverted back to this?

I remember when I was little I was too young to really understand why my brother is the way he is. All I knew is that my older brother, someone who should be smarter me couldn't even spell simple words like cat or count to 2. I wasn't even in school yet and even I could do those things. It doesn't really help matters any if there are kids shows that encourage making fun of disabilities rather than trying to teach kids in a way they'll understand what disabilities are.

He got made fun of a lot at school and at home and I regret the part I played in that. We really need to teach kids that's not OK at an early age. That said, I actually think kids today are a bit better in that regard even if the media doesn't reflect that. Found out at the end of the last school year there's a little girl at my kid's school that volunteers her free time to help out in the special needs class and next year he's going to be a different class room that I guess is right next door to her's and everyone's always really nice.

Plus a few weeks ago there were a couple kids trys to wave hello when were in Bass Pro. Maybe it's just cause he has an adult with him at all times and bullies tend to act nice whenever adults are around but I'd like to think I've dealt with enough bullies to be able to tell the difference between fake nice and real nice. If anything I've seen kids who are more just confused and don't know what to think than anyone being mean.

And just FYI... from my perspective it seems a lot of people are afraid to even ask. It's OK, if you have questions ask them. It's weirder to me when people just stare at us with those confused looks on their faces. You aren't going to offend me by asking a simple question. As long as you aren't being insulting and ask polightly I'd be happy to answer any questions. I can't really speak for everyone but me personally, any parent's out there, if your kids have questions let them ask. So many people seem like they have something on their mind when they see us but are afraid to actually say anything.

 

I think they were established as two desperate characters just by having FoC be a lot closer to his G1 incarnation though created by Shockwave instead of Wheeljack and on Cybertron instead of Earth... while RID2 Grimlock is a Decepticon turned Autobot, doesn't have his typical color scheme though the toy line did have Gold Armor Grimlock in his traditional colors. The thing is I don't believe they were ever actually intended to ever exist in the same universe.

The shows creators from the start of Prime totally ignored anything that was set up in the Cybertron games. High Moon also fully intended for their games to be a sort of loose prequel to G1 which is why everyone actually looks like a Cybertronian version of their G1 incarnation. Bumblebee and Cliffjumper in the games do not look anything like their Prime incarnations... though Cliff did get a slight change to his head sculpt in FoC to look like Prime it didn't really help connect the two. Ones a short round red Bumblebee repaint and the other is a taller, thinner muscle car who looks nothing at all like Bumblebee.

Then there's Arcee who again in the games is basically just exactly her G1 character. How the heck does a pink and white convert able turn into a blue motorcycle who actually in one episode said she didn't even like pink?

Although I guess Starscream kind of explains away how they can drastically change their body types when he's shown in RID2 looking far more G1 than he did on Prime... Soundwave too and the transformation of that toy even feels very similar to the WfC toy. Well except for the fact that they still never actually explain the upgrades but they at least established that the skinny Prime versions are the same characters as their bulkier RID2 counterparts.

There's still an issue with Soundwave though as he actually speaks in the Cybertron games.

Anyway... it's Hasbro who basically stepped in and decided everything should be connected but I don't believe High Moon ever intended for their games be part of the aligned continuity. It's kinda like the same thing that happened with the Unicron Trilogy where Galaxy Force was intended to be a separate continuity and Hasbro wanted to force it in as a sequel which lead to inconsistencies like Hot Shot who had grown into a mature character by that point reverting back to his Armada personality. Also they didn't help matters any by recasting several returning characters and giving them completely different voices. Why is Jetfire Australian all of the sudden? Why is he voiced by Scott McNeil, a man who was actually born and raised in Australia for Armada and Energon but not during Cybertron? Yes I know he lives in Canada now but he was born Canadian. And still why would you even make Jetfire Australian in the first place? What did he spend a year in Australia between Energon and Cybertron and picked up their accent?

Red Alert is also suddenly British, and he wasn't even in Energon so I guess he could of been in England all that time he was missing. I'm not sure who voiced him in either Armada or Cybertron but I don't think it's the same guy.

Note to Hasbro, if you want something to be connected try putting in the work to actually establish that they exist in the same continuity instead of just saying they're connected. It makes no sense for something to be in the same universe when it feels like you're doing everything in your power to establish everyone as totally different characters. I could of easily accepted Cybertron as a sequel if the characters actually kept the same voice actors, the same personalities, and didn't forget previously established events that were suppose to have occurred in their past.

And here's another thing... when you create a continuity bible for your different production teams but then tell them they don't actually have to follow it... guess what, when a video game totally ignores EVERYTHING and goes for a more G1 approach then it's not really aligned. If you wanted them to actually create an aligned continuity then you have to be more strict about every production team actually following the same continuity.

What's weird is Beast Wars and Beast Machines some how managed to have a fairly good continuity despite Hasbro apparently not letting anyone watch the show they were making a sequel to. Maybe because they had the same cast and a production crew who was actually willing to listen to that cast they fixed any continuity errors as they came up? But still Hasbro has made some pretty freaking terrible decisions regarding story that usually results in the continuity making absolutely no sense at all. I think the less involvement they have in trying to dictate continuity the better the story is going to be.

Unless you're Micheal Bay in which case the story probably could of benifitted with more involvement from Hasbro...

 

For the season 1 and 2 animal bots they gave a good explanation.

Dinobots - The Autobots found dinosaur bones in a hidden cavern in the Ark and Wheeljack was inspired to make Dinobots. Later, Swoop and Snarl were created to bolster their ranks after Optimus realized that the original 3 Dinobots were useful (which is ironic beause that episode, the original 3 dinobots betrayed the Autobots)

Insecticons - they came to Earth while the majority of the Autobots and Decepticons were deactivated and took the form of prehistoric bugs.

Laserbeak, Buzzsaw, Ravage - took forms of Earth animals.

the ones not explained in the cartoon... Predacons, Sky Lynx, Terrorcons

 

I'm assuming that like Laserbeak, Buzzsaw (especially) and Ravage also had cybertronian modes and since the other Decepticons took earth based modes, it made sense for the 3 animal cassettes to as well. They didn't say it explicitly but its a fair assumption. Better than Gobots who all had earth based vehicle modes despite never having any contact with Earth before their first episode.

 

Transformers prime at least tried to address certain plot points. Robots in disguise becomes Pokémon in regards to progression.

 

Smokey not showing up kinda irks me too. He save OP life for Primus sakes!

This

 

"The big bad for season 2 was really boring and uninteresting to me. Why didn't they have Airachnid and her army of vampire zombie Insecticons in the series".

Because she is dull, unreasonable and pointless? Though, if looking from this position, Airachnid would fit well with Stunticons and one- shot- killed guy from your avatar.
I do not think RID 2015 was supposed to bring anything from TFP, so there was nothing to be expected from this point. The weirdest thing is that "they couldn't contact humans from TFP". They were such a family, then just moved and have lost all the conection for like decades. Just imagine it: Team Prime returns to their planet and is so bussy with restoring it that, when they, actually, recollect their bond with humans, it turns out that one hundred years has passed, and all of them are dead. "Oops, if only I studied their biology better and knew they live for so short, comparing to us".

Though, some of us, probably, still expect the next cartoon to cover all the gaps, but since nobody bothered to do so in RID 2015, would it be logical to expect anything from a, presumably, more primitive show.
But I am still among those, who leave a possiblity that StarScream wasn't very precise in his descriptions, so Predacons are not enterely extinct.

 

1. Not anymore dull or pointless than Glow strike and Scorponok. At least she was actually an established character already. Ironically her animation model was used in RID2 but for some nameless background character. Megatronus was killed quickly but the series over all pretty much did that with every major villain of the series.

The point of that was that Season 1 had Megatronus, and season 2 ended with some lame villains no one knew before or even cared about. Then things got weird from there where the Starscream arc was listed as being season 3 but also seemed like a more fitting end to season 2. Then we had Soundwave, Stunticons, and Galvatronus all in Season 3 arcs. Airachnid actually fits the aesthetic of the series and is someone we know who's still a loose end left over from Prime like Starscream and Soundwave who both made returns in this series so why not put her in there? Just because you apparently don't like her is not a reason.

2. I agree with you about the TFP Humans, especially Raf who was Bee's partner for all of Prime, so why would Bee never attempt to contact him?

3. Cyberverse isn't even set in the same continuity so how are they suppose to fill gaps between these shows?

4. We know for a fact that Starscream was lying about how the Predacons were killed but that doesn't mean they aren't still dead. According to Starscream's dialog he used his own skills to bravely fight off the Predacons which is what we know to be the lie because the flash back shows what really happened... he ran away like a coward, triggered a defence mechanism while tripping and falling to the ground and those defense cannons fired at the Predacons killing them instantly. Why would you think that the Flash back is also a lie by Starscream when it wasn't even showing the same story that Starscream was telling? His dialog was clearly a lie, but we were shown the truth, the Predacons are in fact dead. They didn't die the Starscream claimed but they did in fact die... and the way they died was just embarissingly bad to the point where I wish Starscream's story was actually true. At least in his version of events they died in battle instead in a freak accident.

 

That fight between Megatronus and Optimus could have been better and cooler.

 

I was hoping to see Springload repainted into a Spittor homage.  

 

The soundtrack.
I was very excited, when I saw that Kevin Manthei’s name in the credits. He’s done such work as the ost for Invader Zim, various pieces for the first Resident Evil Movie & Twisted Metal Black (among a ton of other credits).
But honestly- the ost for RID is forgettable. I can’t remember one single tune off the top of my head. Not even the theme song. Where were all those kickass tunes??? This should’ve been the best sounding TF show ever! Just imagine what it could’ve been like after giving these a listen:

 

I can sympathise with them not picking up stories that began in Transformers Prime or War for Cybertron but the handling of Megatronus was completely unforgivable. I didn't actually like him but I recognised that he was the catalyst for all the conflict in the show, why Optimus was allowed to come back from the dead, why Windblade had been sent personally by Primus and was responsible for the Alchemor crashing.
He alludes to the idea he was working for someone with power greater than a Prime that probably isn't Unicron because he enacts a plan that'll destroy him... then he's defeated and never really mentioned again.

Following this, Fracture. He was the first real sign that the Council were up to no good back in season 1 but then he dropped off the radar and never came back.

The Starcream arc was the one thing this show did 100% right. Soundwave tried to recapture the magic but he and the Stunticons got in each other's way and left no satisfactory pay-off for either.

 

Oh not really a missed opportunity but given they share the same title and have a similar theme of vehicle good guys fighting animal bad guys I would of liked to see at least one episode where the Decepticons consisted of...

A Sharkticon named Sky-Byte, an Amphiboid named Slapper, a Skunkticon named Gas Skunk, and I'm not really sure about Dark Scream cause he was a flying squirl and they never had any kind of squirl type Decepticon on this series.

There were two other Skarkticons in the forms of Hammerstrike and Ragebyte.

Springload was the only Amphiboid, also called an Amphibicon.

The Skunkticons consisted of Malador, his gang of three other unnamed Skunkticons, and the lone one from a later episode called Zorillor.

Anyway they're missing any kind of Sciuridon which is apparently what species Nightglider and Dark Scream belong to in another universe.

Sciuridon - Transformers Wiki

Any artists want to get on recoloring those three existing animation models and designing what Dark Scream might look like as a Sciuridon in the RID2 animation style?

I'm not sure if they could do it but it also would of been great if they could get their original voice actors back from RID1 to do the RID2 versions.

Oh and to make the episode even better, if they could have guest Autobots, Sideburn, Prowl, and X-Brawn in the episode as well that'd be awesome. I'm thinking Strongarm with a different head and the sirens removed could be X-Brawn, Bumblebee with an added siren and a new head could be Prowl, and Sideswipe with a different head could be Sideburn. That might be a little too much for a single episode to have four Decepticons and three Autobots based on RID1, maybe just the RID2 Decepticons based on the RID1 Predacons.

Though it could of made for a good season story arc and further connected them to the guys they're based on if it turned out they were working for Predaking. He could make for a decent replacement to Megatron/Galvatron. Maybe just have Sky-Bytes crew call themselves Predacons and Bumblebee could even say something to them like "I've fought Predacons before and you're not Predacons!"

Would be pretty funny if they all just have poorly painted Prime Predacon insignias painted on them to where you can still see their Deception insignias underneath.