or useing the force.
is it wierd that i want toys of the humans more than the bots?

 

I just started watching the series, and I really enjoy it. I'm not sure why the fanbase is so divided on it.

 

Keep watching..

 

Because some people are only fixated on the writing.

 

And you believe that if there are enough other parts of a show that's good (visuals, acting) that it overshadows bad writing? As much as I disagree, I can understand that. Writing is just one of many aspects of a TV show or movie.

BTW, judging by your username and sig, I'm guessing you're more an Autobot fan, right?

 

But, do you sit there, watch a show just to nitpick and ponder about the writing and not just enjoy what you're watching? I admit that the relic hunting got a bit much, but I enjoyed watching it? Some of the fight scenes were a bit bland but I enjoyed watching them?


The second highlighted part? What has that got to do with anything?

BTW, judging by your custom title you're more of a Unicron fan, right?

 

I watch a show in hope the writing won't suck and will instead, have interesting characters that are fun to watch and give payoff to what it's done earlier, making me glad I watched it. I'd argue that TFP did not give me that but I grew tired of discussing this shows writing long ago.

I asked about you being an Autobot fan because acting and visuals are only two aspects. The next obvious aspect for Transformers is action. But the action of this series is 50% Decepticon generics acting like there's something wrong with them while being gunned down. And I find it hard to believe a 'Con fan could find that entertaining.

And I set my title to random or auto-generate or whatever. I think it's indicative of how many posts I've made. I'm a Decepticon fan.

 

My username notwithstanding (it was the name I gave my first full-custom repaint), I don't usually play favorites with the factions because I shouldn't need to decide which side is written better.

But somehow, despite losing all the time, the Decepticons tended to have much more characterful banter in Prime and I legitimately wanted them to actually pull a Beast Machines and end up being the winners in the end just because I despised the Autobots that much.

 

But that just goes back to the problems with the writing. Megatron and Starscream were hugely inconsi... Wait, no, I won't enter a discussion about the show's writing.

I guess you could find their banter enjoyable, even if their characters were incredibly inconsistent.

 

Are you talking about the live action movies too?

 

Same here...but mostly Miko in the armor, and Fowler in a jet.

 

I know I'm hopping in here a couple dozen pages too late.

I don't think Prime sucked, but I just couldn't get into it.

I've tried to figure out why; there's plenty of action, a great building of continuity, a cast that can expand or shrink as necessary, humans as legitimate threats and allies to the Autobots, and probably the Starscream that best balances treachery, competence, and cowardice - all positives in my book. Even the child characters are well integrated, and I would say necessary, to the story.

I guess if I had to put my finger on it, my complaints about Prime would be as follows:

1) Everything feels so... self-serious? I know there's plenty of nice little gags and jokes peppered into the proceedings, but I feel like the show is weighed down and somehow less "fun" in a sense. Take "Scrapheap" for example: it's a well-established comic premise - the secret pet that turns into a menace. And they play it that way for a little bit. But not long into the episode Raf has to beat his pet to death with a crowbar, and Optimus Prime and Arcee are super-grim as they freeze to death in the Arctic. Oh, but Miko's afraid of a spider, er... haha, I suppose.

2) 3D models and rendering are expensive. I get it. But I feel like, for as grand a conflict as they're going for, way too many of the battles take place in abandoned and wide open areas. I don't have a problem with that in and of itself - Beast Wars was the same way. But this is taking place in the modern world, and I feel like most of the time these conflicts lack impact by intentionally shying away from expensive to render urban landscapes. The world feels empty.

3) The Autobots are too good. You want to rely on a small cast, that's great - but they have to have enough depth to play off one another. There's really not enough inter-team friction to keep things interesting. Ratchet grouses about stuff, but after watching 12 episodes I'm struggling to recall any significant conflict between Autobots points of view. I'm not saying that there needs to be a Dinobot-esque Antihero, but some sort of disharmony would be welcome.

 

Well said.

The moment the writing in a show is considered miniscule or unimportant is the minute the show dies for good. Writing controls almost everything in an animated TV show. If it suffers, even a bit, it can have serious problems for the way an episode turns out.

Prime's writing was awful almost all the time.

It's a damn shame that everything you say here, at one point, was true.

But the worst part is not even that maintained. Yeah there was plenty of action, but it was very stale. Of the entire three seasons and movie, I can barely remember five action scenes. The continuity building started promising, but quickly became name-drops with no intent to build upon or make use of anything, and eventually the show's continuity almost became a farce. It didn't build continuity as much as it just retread old plot points from previous shows but worse. (no example sticks out more than Starscream's utterly pointless clone army that dies in one episode, a reference to the utterly plot-focused clone army of Animated which was a recurring plot point that set up for the series finale) In theory the cast could expand or shrink, but it pretty much never did. The Autobots never took a single loss aside from Cliffjumper (who doesn't count since he died within the show's first ten minutes) and the only Decepticons who did die or go away were ones that had either just shown up, or were barely (if ever) in the spotlight. And while Starscream started off excellently, he became a total joke by season 3. Gone was any ambition whatsoever, along with any sense of capability or usefulness to anyone, he was just a clown who existed in the Decepticons for literally no reason.

And the child characters became insufferable. Miko may be the worst human sidekick next to Kicker, maybe even worse. Raf was ridiclously adept at computers to the point where it broke any and all believability and made all the Transformers seem like idiots in comparrison when it came to technology. Jack was the best human, and seemed like he was going to serve a legitimate purpose, but after the ham-fisted shove into the limelight in Orion Pax I can't remember what he ever did past that point. Likewise Fowler just kind of seemed shoved-in after a while. He started off cool and an interesting foil, then just became another cheerleader who said silly shit because the writers wanted to make Ernie Hudson consider firing his agent. MECH is probably the most blatant example of Prime's inept storytelling. Starting out as a cohesive, threatening group of terrorists with their plan to build their own Transformer, spend roughly thirty years doign so, then it gets it's ass beat in one episode. Then they bring back Silas, who then kills all of MECH for literally no reason at all, then is also gone next episode for stupid reasons, only to reappear briefly later as a cameo for stupid reasons.

Oh, and Jack's mom. Can't remember her name, couldn't remember her at all until I started actually trying to list every human.

 

Fair enough. I only got 12 episodes in. I didn't stick around to see the points you made play out.

 

"Only fixated on the writing"   Y'know why Beast Wars is still beloved despite its CG aging horribly?

 

honestly i think Prime was a step in the right direction something that can be fallowed and improved apon.

 

They had good ideas, but failed.

 

exactly the good ideas could be fallowed apon.