I'm pretty sure you didn't actually address the real subject of the post you quoted...

 

Huh. I think I've been reading the wrong comic. The one I'm reading has nearly everyone hating Megatron, who managed to merely postpone his (likely death) sentence through a legal loophole, and is only allowed freedom because of Optimus Prime's mercy.

 

It was okay. It was fun to watch, but there was such a massive amount of wasted potential staring them in the face in every single way, especially for character development.

 

Hell, just remembering Bulkhead and Sari playing the xylophone made me grin like an idiot. It's been seven years since that episode aired and it still makes me smile.

Oh I absolutely agree, the end of Thrill of the Hunt is certainly a powerful moment. And another prime example of good storytelling. Prime would probably have Ratchet repeat the story again to Optimus or something. Is it a testament to how bad Prime is that we can only find scenes that might, might pass for an emotional moment?

It's remarkable that Prime literally tried to steal IDW Megs' backstory and ham fist it in, to try to give Prime Megatron depth. I absolutely agree, the only cool thing about that scene was how he came up with it on the spot.

Because he's pretty much the best written Megatron of the franchise.

Of course you wouldn't. Are you even interested in the discussion or are you hear to go against those who like IDW, as usual?

Yeah, the Twilight Zone reference gave me a good laugh. I was hoping that he'd sneak in a "Who you gonna call?" or something!

The Human Factor was one of the worst if not the worst episodes of the series. It wasn't the episode that made me think "Good lord, this is shit", though. I think that was Armada and Flying Mind.

Bingo.

I love how you completely ignored what he was talking about and went for a complete non sequitur.

And frankly everything is a TV Trope to the initiated. TV Tropes ruins your life, as that site says. But it also says Tropes Are Not Bad, which is true. The "Art Evolution" trope, when applied to Prime, notes that the CGI got better over time, which is a good thing. So don't just toss out "TV Trope" out there like it's a bad thing or something.

He never does.

 

Wow, that sounds like a badass comic! I totally should try it out sometime.

I'd go so far as to say that Thrill of the Hunt is in fact the most important episode in Animated - not only does it show how well the show handles emotional depth, but for a character who shows up in three episodes in the whole series (+ an indirect reference as Swindle's "mutual bounty hunter association"), Lockdown's actions in Ratchet's flashbacks set up half of the entire series back story - the other half is covered in his last appearance when Prowl discovers Lockdown was the one responsible for both Yoketron's death ('cause he stole the dude' helmet) and far more importantly the theft of the secret Autobot protoforms (from which would eventually come the Starscream clones, the Lugnut Supremes, and Sari Sundac).

I think everybody can agree on that.

I'm still trying to figure out where IDW took over from RID as the subject in this thread.

Oh, right, it was because IDW Megatron has more characterization and personality in his pinky finger than Prime Megatron ever had to begin with.

Funny how the only references the show actually did right were the ones that didn't involve hamfisting G1 namedrops or "LIGHT OUR DARKEST HOUR" being spouted a bazillion times.

Like I said, that was the episode that cemented my opinion that Prime was a lost cause in ever hoping it actually could do something as simple as not immediately writing out a major plot point before it became a recursive element in the show.

 

Yeah, Thrill of the Hunt was really the decisive episode of Animated in a ton of ways.

And dear LORD, the G1 references were terrible. Okay, the first time Ratchet said "darkest hour", I did get chills. But then they said it again. And again. And again. Nobody was surprised that we got "Soundwave superior". "One shall stand" was more of a running gag, yet they expected us to take it seriously.

The only G1 reference I can say I liked was Magnus going "I couldn't deal with Wrecker Style on Cybertron, and can't deal with it here". And that was still really pushing it.

I swear the show's writers hated the idea of changing the status quo so much, they devoted entire episodes to showing that "here's something that could change it up, oh wait, nope, just kidding, suckers." I remember the promise of "no status quo" in season three, and four episodes in, they're back to basics. It's remarkable how high off themselves the Prime production crew was.

 

I'm beginning to consider that maybe Transformers: Prime is something best looked at as "inspirational", something to spark ideas and get your mind going, rather than just judging it by the end result.

Were there tons of unexplained plot points and missed opportunities? Absolutely. But that's great for thinking about all the "what if's?" and potential subplots. No show will ever be perfect, but I'm very happy that this one existed.

 

It was great, even though "Predacons Rising" didn't tie up every loose end.

 

I'll stop pretending the show's second and third seasons didn't exist for a second, and say that the "Soundwave superior" was great in how much it made me laugh. The line and the voice it was delivered in was so unfitting for this incarnation of Soundwave it was hilarious.

 

Except that's probably worse than what actually happened, because there you're saying the show taunted the audience with so many potential plot paths (I will admit to this day the fact Soundwave didn't end up being some master puppeteer virus thing that had been playing Megatron as a figurehead from day one while SW really was the one calling the shots the whole time pisses me off to no end) and never followed up on any of them.

Well, actually, in a sense that is pretty much what Prime did come to think of it - that status quo pretty much ensured the stakes never got to the point where anything the Decepticons did to the Autobots actually mattered. Even blowing up their base for four episodes and scattering them across the world didn't do squat in the end.

 

I strongly disagree with this. Prime Megatron was a badass War Lord. Combined with the fact you have Welker actually giving the character a good voice, and he's one, if not my favorite Megatron.

 

Individually he was super strong, but as an actual leader...well, the hard truth is that Starscream actually was far better.

After all, in the time Megatron was back in the saddle of the Decepticons, how many Autobots did he manage to kill? None.

Starscream at least has claim on the one Autobot who stayed dead on screen while he was leader and even from the pilot episodes, was concerned about the infrastructure of the Decepticon operations when Megatron demanded the Energon mine be destroyed.

 

Badass in combat? Perhaps. The fight with the Insecticon was cool. But a badass character? I disagree. He came off more as a cut out of a Megatron, especially the IDW one. Even Movie Megs was written better than him.

 

I disagree strongly. How Megatron eventually saw his evils in Predacons Rising was much better than how IDW handled it in Dawn of the Autobots. His reasons made sense, and it doesn't technically go beyond the basic reason why Megatron became what he was, so it leaves a lot up to your imagination.

 

Well, I wouldn't say the show taunted us, exactly...more like constant teasing  

But you see? Right there, you came up with a kick-ass surprise ending plot. It's like they started with a huge blank canvas, and painted most of it, but left big parts unfinished or sketchy. And it's what you choose to imagine that fills it up, makes it a masterpiece, right? It's not what it is, it's what you can do with it.

*Cue Spongebob "Imaginaaaaaation" rainbow clip*

.....What am I still doing up? It's late, and I'm rambling and starting to mis-spell things. Everybody just call me crazy please   I'm off to bed.

 

He only suddenly decided to end the Decepticons after he was tortured by Unicron for probably a day or two, tops. It was never foreshadowed, besides Optimus' wistful desire to redeem him back in season one. It just came out of nowhere. He apparently realizes his evil in that short day where he's freed from Unicron's control. Then we get him rambling that now he knows what oppression is. Once again, Prime tries to convince us that it's deep with a rushed, forced defection/turn/whatever; solely to keep Megs alive for the future and for toys.

Here's a quote from IDW Megatron.

"I once told Optimus I killed for the sake of killing… When those words were in my head, I didn't think I meant them. But when they left my mouth… I realized I did. If the world thinks you're a monster, what does it matter? The world is wrong. But when you start to think of yourself as a monster… I came to hate the person I'd become. And I decided the best way, perhaps the easiest way, was to become an Autobot."

Since Dark Cybertron, Roberts has been fleshing out IDW Megatron. His lost mentor. An attempt to effectively lobotomize him as he watched, crying in terror, that led to a lifelong fear of needles. The brutal ways of the Senate that oppressed him. There is a scan of a lengthy excerpt from Towards Peace (or at least one of his writings), detailing why he's rebelling against the status quo, that he wants his people to thrive. That's why he ended up becoming a villain. Starscream's analysis of him in his trial wasn't too far off from the truth. He started something that quickly grew far beyond what he had imagined, and he lost his way. The DJD are proof of that, as Fulcrum noted during the Scavengers arc. He became a monster, but what's a thousand times more powerful than Prime Megatron, is that he genuinely hates himself for it.

I seriously don't see how Prime Megatron's change of heart can even compare to IDW's. The fact that it happened at the end of Prime doesn't change a thing. If they seriously cared about telling a decent story, they would've built it up for a while, maybe the whole series. But no, Megs gets tortured, and in less than a minute decides "Oh, I defect, cuz I know stuff now."

 

Everything's a TV Trope. TV Tropes collects every single trope used. People need to stop thinking "tropes" are a bad thing, because everything is a trope.

He was anything but. He was only badass because they jacked his strength up to eleven yet he still lost constantly and any and all victories he did get were random happenstance out of his control. The writers didn't know how to make a compelling villain so they just made him super powerful.

Neither did Megatron becoming an Autobot in IDW. The only difference is Megatron's character discrepancies has the excuse of multiple writers over the span of years fighting to write "their version" beforehand, wheras Prime Megatron is inconsistent under the same group of writers.

Plus, Prime Megatron's backstory and motivations are so undefined it's hard to say what does and doesn't go beyond their reason. We saw the things IDW Megatron revolted against, the prejudice and insustice, and using people's faith to cruely manipulate them. It was a system that needed to be broken. We don't know what Prime Megatron rebelled against, just that the government was bad because they were bad.

 

Awful, wasteful, and overrated by the few people that actually like it.

Pretty much what's been said.

 

But prime was real bad about tropes.

 

You didn't listen to a single thing he said.