An idea to Discuss.

Personally, at the moment, nothing about Prime screams out classic to me.

Is Prime considered better than G1 by some?

Im confused by the sheer Hype and energy surrounding it.

It seems very "clone wars" too.

Please feel free to discuss pro's and con's here.

 

What I love about Prime is the story telling. So far it's better than Animated and the Unicron saga... also Robots in Disguise... to some extent (I enjoyed Robots in Disguise).

I'm not saying it's the best series we've had. I'm just saying it's better than we've had in a very long time.

 

Prime is meant to be its own continuity with some movieverse style thrown in to make it recognizable to the younger audience demographic. It doesn't need to feel classic, indeed the majority of the characters are significantly different to their previous versions or just straight up new characters, and that is hardly a bad thing considering how sick and tired people are getting from the same exact characerizations of Optimus, BB, etc.

It got really good towards the end of the first season, but then in reflection the buildup in previous episodes was good as well, around the time they stopped killing off characters in the same episode they were introduced in, at any rate (I.E. Cliffjumper, Skyquake, etc).

It probably feels like Clone Wars in that both shows are using unique 3D imagery as the medium for the cartoon, but that's about it, really.

 

What I like about Prime is that it does three very important things:

1) Does not copy the same story lines from previous continuities. I don't feel like this show is a rehash of other TF shows. It brings better story telling.

2) Character development. There is growth in many of the characters and that's important for a series.

3)Takes risks. The writers don't seem to downplay their audience or speak down to them.

 

I'll be honest, I don't particulary like Prime. It's fine the first time you watch it, but there is no replay value, I just get bored. Action is nice, but it has a very repetitive plot (Cybertronian thing lands on Earth and Autobots must get it while Miko runs to try and take pictures). I feel Season 1 was better for Animated than Prime. Animated had an even level of character development for everyone, so by Season 2 we are more attached to the characters, while in Prime it's just Arcee and Bulkhead getting the development. I have no love towards any other character in Prime, where in Animated I liked all the characters, even though, admittedly, some episodes were dull.

 

Prime is ungodly slow for me, but I would not consider it worse than the Unicron Trilogy by a long shot. I barely consider those TV shows. Prime, however, is not better than Animated or Beast Wars, but it is easily of their caliber. It's competantly written, the characters seem like characters rather than just toys with voices, and it seems like stuff actually happens now and then. I disagree that the show takes risks, however. It's takes no more risks than past shows. Just because it shows death does not make it edgy or adult, especially when so far it's only had two. Honestly it plays it pretty safe. It's seems terrified to go too far outside the TF status quo, especially Optimus who they're trying so hard to keep the standard image of Optimus Prime they seem afraid to give him a personality. The biggest risk they took was reinventing Unicron, and it was to very lackluster effect. Barely building him up as even a real life entity and resolving the issue of his pressence incredibly fast. The characters, while developed, still rub me as generic. peopel cite Arcee for such amazing charatcer development, but it's a character we've all seen before, and was honestly pretty predictable. They took what was originally just a girl robot from the movie with barely any charatcer and made her edgy, troubled and pretty much anything else to make her like she's been in comics for years. Bulkhead, a fan favourite of Animated, is here also with little character, almost as if they're banking on the audience to remember Animated Bulkhead and just tweak him slightly, and as a result he also comes off as predictable and generic tough guy. The most interesting character of the show is Starscream, who had a wonderful brief story arc, but has not been seen since. And again, despite the character being a revised take on Starscream, he really is just more of the same, but unlike Bulkhead and Arcee, comes across as an actual person rather than just filling the roster of archtypes. The world building of this show is also lacking, feeling exceedingly empty and contrived. I saw a few people acknowledge this problem. Every single occurance in the series has just, by chance, happened on Earth. It seems like half the episdoes of the season proper were "Ratchet discovers Cybertronian thing, team goes out to find it, Miko causes trouble, good guys win."

But really it all boils down to the show just being boring most of the time. It has some interesting concepts, but the execution is lackluster at times.

 

Dunno, I find better than Animated for some of the reasons you seem to think it´s worse. I wasn´t a fan of Animated Bulkehad for example. I prefer the "generic tough guy" to the "dimwitted fool", cause let´s face it, Animated Bulkhead was that steriotype too.

TBH, I wasn´t a fan of most of the Autobots, aside from Omega, Ultra Magnus, Sentinel and Ratchet. I really didn't liked how they spent most of their time getting their asses kicked by the Cons.

 

Only a communist would think Armada and Energon are better than Prime.

Don't be a communist.

 

+1

 

I think Prime blows those shows out of the water compleatly!!! It has much better story telling and characters than the past ones except BW and TFA which are just as fantastic! But that's my opinon nothing more.

 

Indeed.

Honestly Prime is up there with my 3 other favs: Beast Wars, Animated and Cybertron.

It's not as fresh as Beast Wars and Animated (as a concept) are so i compare Prime with Cybertron which both deal with the mighty backstory with Primus, Unicron and them and have allies much simmilar (but also very different)

Prime is complicated because it's got soem some good charecters (Arcee, Starscream, Ratchet and Knockout) and some real boring ones like (Optimus Priem and Bumblebee) Miko is rash and reckless and honestly hones in stupidity much like the Armada kids but hopefully she grows up. Unicron was lackluster but the part with Optimus and Megatron at the end wow was worth the boring stuff.

Good Show, It can only get better.

 

I'm not a fan of Prime by any stretch of the imagination, but I'd prefer to watch it over Animated, AEC and RiD by far.

That isnt really saying much though, I'd rather watch paint dry than Animated or AEC and I'd prefer to watch someone vomit for 22 minutes instead of watching RiD.

Prime at least is visually appealing and has decent voice acting, thats about all its got going for it in my eyes.

 

I agree with a lot of what Split Lip said, though the end of Season One has the potential to change that.

On Optimus, I think that the writers didn't want to invest in his pre-One Shall Rise self because they would rather focus on Season Two Optimus.

The other Autobots aren't that exciting, though Arcee did shine in Predatory, and Ratchet does have his moments.

The Decepticons for the most part are better-characterized, especially Starscream, though the others need more time to shine.

However, that said, I also agree with General Magnus in that it's great to have competent Autobots again.

 

Once the plot starts moving alone, this will easily be the best Transformers series, but there aren't any overarching plots like in Animated and Beast Wars. We got the season finale, and season 2 starts in the end of the month. Once the plot starts moving, it will be a force to be reckoned with.

 

i consider A/E/C the worst series we got in the states. Yes beast machines is better (it just looks ugly). Prime is years ahead of what A/E/C got. If you are a fan of A/E/C it must of been your first tf series.

 

(insert all the synonyms for "absolutely fucking not" here)

 

My, my such hatred for Armada and Energon, though it's not like it's unexpected.

My favorite Transformers series has always been Armada, although Prime is quite a close second. We'll see what they do with Starscream's character in Prime though. His portrayal in Armada made that series for me because I'm extremely tired of the G1 carbon copies we've always seen with him.

 

I haven't been as impressed with Prime as some people seem to be, but there's no question that it's better than the Unicron Trilogy. Even if we remove Energon from the equation and just consider the two tolerable series (Armada + Cybertron), Prime is still far superior.

IMO, Prime isn't up to the level of Beast Wars/Machines and Animated, though...yet. But Prime has lots potential and could surpass them, depending on how the next season goes.

 

Snark and Scantron- you have the most awesome sig pics.  

And yes, TFP is far and away better than Energon and Armada combined. While some of the cast still needs time to flesh out, I at least am interested in the majority of them. With A/E/C I wasn't hardly interested in any of them.