It's fine, they didn't show it on-screen so it's probably fine for kids. The really young ones probably won't even understand what happened so they won't be scared.

 

"I did not come here to start a fight"

Proceeds to immediately beat up two guys

 

Hey, he had to do it! He didn't come to fight, but he had to!

 

Should have made an appointment xd

 

Should have called ahead of time if it was gonna go down like that!

 

Optimus really seems like an asshole in this show so far xd

 

I loved this episode. They did a great job showing Megatron's rise to power for the limited time they had to do it. I wish we could have a whole season like this to tell this story even better because I loved seeing Megatron before he became a villain. It's a side of the character we've never really seen before and the main reason why this episode worked so well. I've been wanting to see a younger version of Megatron like this for a few years now and this did not disappoint. Literally my only complaint is that because they crammed everything into a single episode it was too short. I want to see more of this in the future instead of this condenced version. Beyond just being too short it was good for what it was.

Side not this is also the best version of Megatron ripping out Bumblebee's voice box. It's been done before of course but not like this where we actually get some dialog between the two characters before it happens.

 

The full episode is now up on Hasbro's YouTube Channel. Check it out!

 

This is one of the most disturbing things I've ever seen in Transformers. Shockwave?! Giving high-fives?! That's terrifying...

Anyhow, this episode was great and I just want to point out that Bumblebee is always at rallys, games, and generally just spectating shit. College frat spirit never left him clearly.

 

Missed opportunity for Shadow Striker: Have her be voiced by the actress who voiced Widowmaker in Overwatch, including French accent.

 

Just watched the episode on YouTube. The last few episodes were very good. I'm changing my mind on this series I hope. With all of the call backs to G1 characters, this has the potential to surpass Prime.

 

It was pretty good. Yikes! Poor Bee.  

I like how skeptical Ratchet looked about the whole thing.

Optimus: I'm not here to start a fight. *grabs guards and smashes their faces into the concrete*

Wanna see more of the 2 headed robot.

Soundwave's voice was very unfitting and what's-her-face is a brute.

Megatron was portrayed wonderfully as a powerful, cruel bad-ass and his voice actor is great!

For once Bee being deliberately annoying didn't bother me. The talk, talk, talk scene seemed forced but in a sad way. Like "Really I'm fine. Honest!" Even though they both know he's not.

What idiot decided this oughtta be 11 minutes again? Needs to be fired.

 

There is one minor complaint I forgot to mention and that seems to be more of a problem with this series as a whole rather than this particular episode. Some of the voices don't really fit the characters. Optimus, Megatron, Bumblebee, and Starscream all sounded OK. The new characters I can't really complain about because there's nothing to compare to. Pretty much everyone else though all sounded off. Shockwave might take a bit of getting use to, he isn't that bad but something about him just didn't seem right. Soundwave though, he's got such an iconic voice with that filter that was featured in nearly every continuity except the movies and most of Prime because he didn't talk at all but here he just sounds like another generic Decepticon. I kinda wish he was mute again instead of this voice.

This is kinda reminding me of the voice acting in that Play Station G1 game or that terrible Headmasters dub only not quite as bad. These voice actors can actually act unlike those examples they just seem a little bit miss cast. Like someone was being really lazy and just randomly assigned characters to anyone that auditioned for this series rather than fitting them to characters they're better suited for.

Not sure how much sense any of this is going to make to anyone who isn't any kind of actor. Basically they're all good just they seem like they might of been better as different characters than the ones they're actually playing. Like the guy who voices Grimlock in this series should be voicing Tracks.

 

Maybe all the mini-Shockwave alt-modes surrounding Shockwave in the lab with Vector Sigma is a callback to the G1 toon where Shockwave held a mini-Shockwave blaster alt-mode.

Good episode, but it could have used a look into the problems of Cybertronian society that Optimus and Megatron are rebelling against. Early Cyberverse Megatron comes off as very charismatic, but not potentially as needed or sympathetic as IDW Megatron simply because we don't know why Cybertronians want a change in the way their planet is run.

 

I thought those Shockwave drones reminded me of the spider drones Tarantulus had in Beast Wars.

I'm wandering if Shockwave even actually transforms in this series because we haven't actually seen his alt mode in the show. Maybe the animators didn't like it either and made the drones to look like it rather than having him actually transform into that thing.

 

We've never seen him in circumstances where he'd need to transform

 

Pretty good. Also kinda cool to see the rise of Megatron/Decepticons shown more than just told, at least in animation. As to voices, Soundwave... needs more processing at the least. Megatron sounds a bit better to me in this ep. He lost the vague hint of an Australian accent, and now sounds more like budget Clancy Brown to me.  

It's interesting how much this show is, in its own way, "Junior's First G1". It's not really, but thru flashbacks is retelling/reintroducing G1 history and characters mish-mashed from various sources (and a few dashes of Movie and Prime-verse) for a (presumably) new audience.

 

Well said!

 

Agreed on pretty much all of this. I think the super light-hearted "talk" thing at the end was their attempt at making it not be TOO scary for little kids, given the violence they just showed/implied. That was darker than I had expected. I think they tried to lighten it back up again immediately by doing the talk thing, though I, like you, found it falling a bit flat. It's like the show wants to go deeper and maybe darker but is afraid to to let any impacts actually hit and sink in.

The voice acting is hit or miss for me. When Bee actually talks, he works for me, and while I don't like Starscream's voice all that much compared to some, it works too, and the actor does their job well. There are other characters, including Windblade, who...I dunno, sometimes I like them but other times I become very aware I'm just watching a cartoon rather than being sucked into the story. Grimlock and Soundwave are the most dis-jarring to me, though.

 

I wouldn't mind them ending on a note of levity, but I feel like it should have been more mellow and bittersweet. Honestly, I think completely undercutting the darkness with a joke might send a worse message to kids than simply ending the episode on a downer note would. The main character getting his voice-box torn out is a pretty serious thing. It could be equated to a war injury or an amputation. As unpleasant as those subjects are, it wouldn't hurt to present them in a serious light. Making everything a joke just sends the message that...well, everything's a joke.