Listening to the conversation. It\'s ok so far. But DeSanto, knowing about the original Transformers shold have stuck to his guns as far as History (he says originally Alpha Trion was the one supposed to die instead of Ultra Magnus). But he acquesed because of one of the writers of Cyberverse joining the team saying he was already dead in that continuity. The continuitues have NOTHING to do with each other. Alpha Trion was very much alive in original TF lore (well into season 2), killing him off I think would have made more sense than killing Ultra Magnus...oh well....

All that aside I really like the show (yes Voice direction and Soundtrack are probably the weak points), but the rest is enjoyable. It is the first time I\'ve actually enjoyed a Transformers show since Prime ended in 2013. 

 

Beautiful those concept-arts.

 

Is it still going?
Is there a Q&A session?

I'd like to ask the vocal director if they cast Megatron first, then told every other voice actor he was cast as Starscream.
Because, other than Megatron, they all sounded like they were doing a bad impression of Starscream.
ALL OF THEM.

 

It just ended, unfortunately no Q&A, and no hints at when Earthrise is coming. They seem to be well into working on Kingdom, so I hope Earthrise is not too far off. 

 

I agree that it's a weird justification for making Alpha Trion a historical footnote yet again. It's a trend that they seem determined to stick to with recent continuities. Poor old A3 is doomed to be just a reference or cameo from here on out.

I'm also really disappointed they didn't give some sort of sneak peak at Earthrise. I really thought they would.

 

Totally forgot about this. Hopefully there's a VOD later?

Guess I shouldn't be surprised that they made the chat subscribers only. Otherwise they'd have tons of fans asking "why the show sucked?". "Why didn't they get the original voice actors?". Stuff like that.

I started watching near the end when they were showing the storyboards and animatics vs the final product, and I literally thought they looked better than what we got. No joke. I mean, in the storyboard, Megatron was drawn like effing GeeWun Megatron! Bucket head and everything! Not some sharpened, modern version, no! The damn sketch looked more like Megatron that CAD animation model! And then in the animatic, you could actually SEE him! He wasn't just a shadow with some eyes.

And seriously? This show has 100% on Rotten Tomatoes?!
...
Are they blind? Are they deaf? Who watched this and thought it was perfect?

Ugh! If this is the kind of feedback they're getting for this trash, I have no hopes for Earthrise, and ESPECIALLY Kingdom.

We ain't getting Garry Chalk, David Kaye, Ian James Corlett, Venus Terzo, Scott McNeil, etc. NO! We're getting random dude who's never acted a day in his life as Optimus Primal, and other random dude who's only previous role was playing Magmar in a handful of Pokemon episodes as Megatron, and Barbara Dunkleman as Blackarachnia, and Joel Heyman as Rattrap.

 

Corrections in bold.

 

Ahhh so that's why I couldn't chat.
I thought WFC was ok. Not the best, not the worst, but ok. I agree with many others that the voice acting was just dull and plodding and I really hope they learn and do a better job with Season Two.

It reminds me of listening to the G1 voice actors in the TFCon panels in LA in 2019. Something that really got driven home to me is how important the voice acting is and how important it was to bringing life to the G1 show. They realized at the time how the animation was not necessarily the best- there's some good episodes but many times the animation is basically robots standing in a pose and their mouths move and that's the only visual clue you get to the fact that they're talking (or their masks move, lol). There often isn't a lot of emoting and the voice direction at the time realized most of the emoting had to come from the voices, not the animation on screen. And boy did they deliver. G1 TFs have so many iconic, distinctive, memorable voices that are a BIG part of what I remember of each character.
One of my big complaints on the WFC show was how almost all the Cons had the "generic thug" voice and that was about it, save for Starscream and Soundwave (and ironically, Shockwave, who had more emotion in his voice than almost anyone else- the voice was great but imo not fitting for the emotionless Shockwave). Then look at G1 and, say, my favorite TF team, the Combaticons. Just those five baddies each had a distinctive voice. Onslaught had the "James Bond British villain" tactical voice, Blast Off sounded snooty and haughty, Vortex cackled with insane laughter, Brawl was LOUD, and Swindle had a charming, oily used-car-salesman banter- each one had such personality because of that. In WFC I got no such sense of personality, all of them had the generic thug voice.

I hope they'll improve in season two. I'm going to remain hopeful that they'll find their footing, figure out what works and what doesn't, and increase what works. Faster and more distinctive voice acting among them. I didn't really like Cyberverse at first, either, but season 2 was better than 1 and by season 3 they really ended up making a show I enjoyed. Fingers crossed this happens here.

 

Well said re: the voice acting.

Hell, Shockwave I find fascinating because it could have worked with a different performance, but the performance didn't really fit the character. Case in point, Steve Blum doesn't have a lot of vocal range voicewise, but his Shockwave in FOC was clearly a Shockwave based on performance alone.

 

Is there a rundown of what happened at the panel?

 

It’s sad when Blum’s phoned in Shockwave is preferred over this one.

Shockwave is so well recognized IMO because despite being one of the most stereotypical robotic characters design wise, he speaks with an eloquence and sophistication even his “normal” comrades lack. Taking that away is robbing the character of 50% of what made him so beloved. He’s an emotionless killing machine with ambition bigger than he is, yet he sounds like a butler succinctly, yet charmingly, explaining why everyone but him is an idiot.  

 

Agreed. Todd Haberkorn is an excellent voice actor (Fairy Tail's Natsu is a great example) but he just doesn't work as Shockwave.

 

I won't defend the voice acting but I do like the art and animation style.

 

It was 5 people. FJ DeSanto, one of the writers, one of the animation staff from Polygon, and 2 other writers/producers, sorry I cant remember their names. basically they talked about how the show came to be. They showed a few backgrounds. One of the storyboards compared to animatic of a scene from the first episode, and that's about it. They talked about a couple writing choices (see my previous post about Alpha Trion vs Ultra Magnus).

They also talked about FJ Desanto's favorite being the new Mercenary faction (supposedly we will see more of them later) Also he keeps mentioning Dreadwing (this is the 3rd time I've heard him say it). He was named dropped in episode 5, but never actually appeared, I wonder if FJ knows this??...

Also supposedly the Map gimmick from Earthrise will play a big part in the animated series (not sure how they can go to so many planets with 6 episodes...but I guess we'll see).

The only mention of Kingdom was that animation was "well under way", and of course because of the Beast Forms, the animation was very "special" looking (make of that what you will), no hints or indication when the next installment will be released however.

 

Anybody got a direct link where this apparently shabby excuse for a something can be watched now, or was it only a live… thing?

 

so what about season 2

 

No. He wasn't. That's the whole point. He's trying to put up a noble fight but his own troops are wearing thin on his idealism. They just wanted to get the hell out of town while they had the chance.

So now his role will likely shift from winning a war to leading his ship full of refugees.