As I said in a thread:

 

I personally have a soft spot for Superlink, I'll admit that as a preface right now. I don't think it's amazing or the high point of the series, but it's got it's moments.

Superlink is a vastly superior show to Energon. For one, ironically for the show that came out first, they used the finished animation. Energon for whatever reason used unfinished animation and in many cases it was very clear. Superlink had 3 total subplots that were dropped and then dubbed around for Energon, culminating in an episode of Superlink late in the show being completely omitted because it's the payoff for one of those subplots and since it had been omitted all the way along by Energon, there was no way to integrate then, so it was just dropped. They also shifted some dialogue to make it far more weird; for example, in Superlink, when Galvatron revives and Alpha Q makes a quick getaway, Galvatron muses on the multiple fronts his conflict will take and if Alpha Q is merely enacting Unicrons will or has his own agenda with which of them gathers enough Energon to see their plan enacted first. In Energon he wonders what the heck is going on, who Alpha Q may be, and doesn't understand anything. Part of the whole "Pain Count" part of Energon was to make up for some of those dropped subplots to fill the dialogue of the episode.

Superlink has story, even if it's not the best, and sometimes I wonder if they hadn't done such a painful job of the dub, showed all the episodes, and used final animation, how much better the fandom would feel about it.

I caught a tremendous amount of flak for posting about this at the time, but it's worth saying again, is it a war?

When 5-8 are taking on over one thousand, is that a war or is it terrorism? When one side has less then 10% of the population, uses a weapon of mass destruction on the other side entirely to prevent the other side from resurrecting their home world, that doesn't seem like a battle between sides, that seems like a small group who won't settle for another group taking credit for bringing their homeworld back to life simply because of a political difference, that's not really a war, is it?

The Autobots lack a homeland of their own; it's not a matter of defending their own resources or territory.
The Autobots have attacked non-military personnel and locations.
The Autobots have no problem making their entire species suffer then allow their political adversaries restore their homeworld and provide sanctuary for their entire species of refugees.
When Optimus became Orion Pax, he was welcomed back into the Decepticons. When Starscream tried to defect, Arcee nearly beat him to death.

I'm not being sardonic when I say I actually question just how the Autobots in Prime could be considered good guys from the point of view of a non-aligned citizen of Cybertron.

And Prime was so overbudget that they spent almost as much as Lucasfilm did. They were supposed to be 450K an episode but they ended up costing 1.2 million for cheap episodes and close to 2 million for more expensive ones.

 

I loved the character designs in Prime, but the Autobots (save Ratchet) weren’t very interesting or developed, especially compared to Animated. However, I absolutely adore Starscream in Prime, hell he might be my favorite incarnation. The fact that he was equally cunning and pathetic made him a lot more relatable for me. I also liked how other characters tended to underestimate him (Airachnid, Dreadwing) but he always managed to weasel his way out of danger (most of the time). His relationship with Megatron was complex because I never truly understood if he resented him or just simply wanted his approval. It kinda reminds me of Tyrion Lannister’s relationship with Tywin in Game of Thrones. Honestly I would watch an entire show just from his POV

 

While I grew up with G1, and it will always hold a special place in my heart, Transformers Prime is my overall favorite.
Prime Ratchet is my favorite version of Ratchet.
I absolutely loved Smokescreen.
Wrecker Jackie was awesome.
My favorite version of Magnus.
While Bulkhead was never one of my favorites, I liked this version of him.
LOVED Knockout.
Megatron was just the right amount of intimidating.
Liked Starscream.
Soundwave and Laserbeak were awesome.
I even liked Shockwave.
I even liked this version of Arcee.
Bee was solid, without being overbearing. I will admit without shame that I cried at that scene.

Please tell me though, what does the recent Transformers universe have against poor CJ?  

 

He's not Bumblebee.

 

I bet Energon would at least be seen as superior to Armada had it at least been localized competently.

But then I would've been robbed my most amusing TF punching bag.  

Well when you put it like that it makes the Autobots seem morally corrupt and hypocritical.

Like, you know, they blatantly were on multiple occasions. "It's not right to kill a defenseless enemy, even Megatron" Arcee says not five episodes after shooting a comatose Megatron's life support with a smile. "We don't attack the servant class miners" Optimus says even though they fucking eradicated those dudes in the series opener. (also he seemed more upset that Ratchet had attacked a supposed non-combatant than the fact that he charred off half his face) Then there's Bulkhead murdering a Starscream clone in a vengeful rage then schizophrenically convincing himself "I had to, he left me no choice!" like he didn't just brutally cave a dude's head in.

The Prime Autobots were a disturbing group. At least the movie Autobots, as unabashed psychopaths they are, freely admit to their depravity. TFP's Autobots are insufferably self-righteous and consider themselves moral beacons when they are more brutal and bloodthirsty than the 'Cons are most of the time. Remember when Bulkhead disemboweled a Vehicon instead of, y'know, just hitting him? Or shooting him? Or anything beyond a gory, (for them) and painful death? Poor Animated Bulkhead, a character who became so beloved he was adapted into the next show and that's how his namesake acts. :'(

 

What kills me about those numbers is...where did all the money go? I mean, virtually every single landscape that should be teeming with humans are barren wastelands and they had TWO CLIP EPISODES.

 

Don't forget the history of the Spark Extractor. Megatron only threatens to use it to get the Autobots to back off.

The Autobots get their hands on it, tries to use it on the Nemesis (Only to be stopped by Not-Trypticon) and then actually use it later to stop the revivification of their planet.

Those good guys and their mass instant death machine.

There was an article after Season one where the animation studio talked about how each and every main character had multiple transformation sequences. To convey different moods, for different speeds, etc. Then Damaged Breakdown wasn't just an altered Breakdown, but a whole new model, with a unique transformation of his own, just like Terrorcon Cliffjumper.

Wasn't that such a smart allocation of budget?  

 

Rendering and rigging no doubt. Say what you will about the character designs and animation being bland and overdone respectively, but look at the fucking sheen on those 'bots. Some of the metal textures, especially on characters with vibrant colours, were amazing. Also, the actual character animation was too goofy and overdone IMO, but the actual amount of movement, subtle and not-subtle, and fluidity was top-notch.

But it was all in service of such a weak show. TFA, ironically, had shit animation most of the time, but nobody really cared because the story was so good. TFPrime was probably second only to the Clone wars as the prettiest cartoon on TV at the time, and yet it really didn't amount to much.

They took the "Autobots wage their battle to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons" a bit too literally.

 

I don't mind more violent and loose cannon heroes (in fact, one of my favorite shows was Beast Machines, and that showed heroes that did make mistakes and were much more rougher around the edges), but yeah, the approach TFP took really made all the Autobots look like hypocrites, and I don't like that.

 

So literally millions got wasted for variations on a transformation sequence literally nobody was going to notice.

Meanwhile, the people who had to recut gag sequences for HUB commercials legitimately had better talent in writing than endless plot devices.

 

Predaking not transforming for a few episodes was the result of the budget being used up (AKA they couldn't make the robot mode/transformation under the budget). Though it at least it was beneficial to the story from what I can remember. The show's budget somehow ballooned early on, like double the initial cost per episode (and 400k-500k per episode was already high to begin with). Even worse if that's referring to just the animation budget. No wonder things were dialed back in the shows afterwards.

 

It was until it wasn’t. They built up his growing intellect quite well, but then he just randomly transforms at the beginning of an ep and it’s super anticlimactic. Plus the fact that he stays subservient even though it looked like he was getting angry being a Decepticon pet made the whole reveal pretty lacklustre.

It’d have been cooler if he had transformed at the end of an ep, after being bossed around and treated like a lapdog, and revealed both his intelligence and his independence. The way it happened was like, okay, so you can talk, but you’re not really changing how you behave or your place among the Decepticons.

 

I thought it was a fine show,but most of the Autobots were 1 dimensional( Except Ratchet. He was brilliant), the designs were weak ( Although Wheeljack was pretty cool),
And Unicron as Earth? Lame.
However, there was a hell of alot put into the Decepticons storywise and design wise. I really thought Soundwave,Shockwave,Breakdown,the Insecticons and the Predacons were worth the price of lackluster " Heroes".

 

Who's CJ?

 

Cliffjumper

 

Hopefully he doesn’t die in siege

 

It’d be funny if they have him almost dying every episode as a running gag but never quite biting the dust.

 

Yes, it was. I don't know who were dumber, the human characters or the Transformers.

 

I have mixed thoughts on Prime. But I must state my qualms. The "removal" of characters (mostly Destrons) becomes forgotten. Dreadwing and Breakdown hasn't been mentioned afterwards after his death. The humans become devalued overtime. I mean Jack was entrusted with a significant item for an unknown reason only later to be neglected. He even states in ep 51 that the Cybertrons have been keeping secrets from him. An last but not least, there are many loose ends like the final fates of certain characters. Ones in particular are Shockwave, Predaking, and Airachnid.