I'm now ready for the sequel and hoping that they have the Unicron trilogy incorporated into a crossover with G1

I want an actual conclusion/resolution to the Elita 1/Jetfire vs Shockwave plot. I feel like it got cut/dropped.

 

I wouldn't ever go as far as calling it good, but it doesn't quite reach the depths of being 100% bad either. It was bottom of the barrel serviceable. You're bang on that it's the strongest aspect of the show (not that it takes much), but definitely needs some nuance....or even just imagination.

I wonder if we'll ever get a singular traditional solid Transformers series again, instead of a short young-child oriented cartoon and occasional accompanying "adult" series made for edgy children?

 

So BW Megatron absolutely sucks in this. On top of that, this show (like so much of media these days) leans heavily on the old celebrated material without putting effort in themselves. This isn't really a new interpretation of him, because he's still saying yesss and idly petting his T. rex head, it's just an incredibly shitty portrayal. Which unfortunately is widespread in the brand right now. We don't get "another Beast Wars" in the sense of a radical new vision that's also well-crafted, we get "another Beast Wars" that's literally the same Beast Wars again but without the charm. And we got TWO of those happening right now, and they're threatening us with a third one next year.
*sigh*




Other scattered thoughts:
- Soundwave totally died, but then he just comes back I guess.
- I can't tell if BA kissing "her hero" Airrazor is supposed to be a lesbian thing or a Looney Toons gag (IIRC Rattrap did a few of those in the original show). Could always be both, of course.
- So many Scorponoks.... after G1 Scorpy told us he was the last one.
- Tigatron being just a white Cheetor even in beast mode is a hell of a thing.
- The Allspark's master plan of allowing G1 Megatron to claim the Matrix, just to ... I dunno, immediately throw him down a hole and return the Matrix to Optimus. What.
- I'm guessing by the Cybertronian letters the Golden Disk isn't the actual Voyager Golden Record. Which is really weird since it's got all the incredibly specific details on it.

 

The idea that Cybertronians from the past and Cybertronians from the future meet was not bad. I honestly found it extremely interesting.

Voice acting. I think most of the voices were ok. Some less, some more. Often times I couldn't decide (as before) whether I should watch the series in German or in English. There were English dubbing voices that I found really good (Starscream, Blackarachnia, Airazor). Others had, in my opinion, better German dubbing voices (however, Starscream's German voice is unbearable).

Loved the chemistry between Blackarachnia and Starscream. But above all, I am immensely pleased that he did not have to die (again).

Nice to see Thundercacker (albeit far too short). Unfortunately my hope to see Skywarp again was not fulfilled either.

Would have liked to have seen more about Airazor and Tigatron's relationship.

I'm glad Soundwave didn't go "offline" forever.

Unfortunately, after all these seasons/episodes (Siege, Earthrise and now Kingdom) I haven't been able to "warm up" neither for Megatron (extremely unsympathetic and uninteresting) nor Optimus (boring?). Kind of a pity.

Though the dead world Cybertron was eerily beautiful and fascinating, but I was not very thrilled about Elitas, Skyfires (and everyone else's) fate, to say the least. That was one of the biggest downer for me.

All in all, I'd say the show was ok, but...I just can't get used to the fact that the episodes are so short. Somehow everything feels so "rushed". I'm pretty sure that longer episodes resp. seasons would have a "positive impact" on the story, the characterization of the individual characters.

 

I must be honest and say I quit reading your post after this initial comment, because you’re preparing to argue against how my own mind works. I didn’t say that BW concepts were absolutely in conflict with the possibilities of science— I simply said they were too much for me to accept even for entertainment’s sake. Basically, it’s akin to me saying “I don’t like this” and you saying “oh, but yes you do, and here’s why.”

I’m assuming the rest of your post explains your own mind’s logic on the subject, which is fine, but doesn’t necessarily apply to me. I find the premise of Beast Wars neither feasible nor intellectually palatable, and my point was to illustrate one of several factors that kept me from appreciating the show. I wasn’t so much debating the acceptability of the science as I was saying I personally thought it was a stretch, and I find the idea of blending organic and mechanical tissue somewhat repulsive.

Regardless, resolving that issue alone wouldn’t be sufficient for me to enjoy the show. I tried multiple times— knowing it was a longtime fan favorite— but just couldn’t get into it. At best I was indifferent, and at worst irritated when watching it. But for the most part, I just found it to be a waste of my time.

 

Not quite. Megatron reused some of Soundwave's old parts, along with some other new parts and has reconstructed another Soundwave...called New Soundwave. (Soundblaster was already taken.)

 

displeased at the treatment of Elita one in kingdom, the other two seasons, she was the best Autobot, but this whole trilogy is Megatron's heroic tale, and it shows.

Optimus is perhaps the worst version of him ever put to recurring show form, bay was bloodthirsty, but he had noble causes, this Optimus is the main antagonist of the trilogy, repeatedly.

beast Megatron was... just scorponok in Megatron cosplay, and dinobot was a little slow to be honorable, but, not bad.

tigertron was a bit, generic... and I'm pleased with the blackarachnia flirting, and commenting on "the pink one" but she's a bit dangerously close to the "lesbian predator" trope of old, so I'm disappointed we don't get any balancing that out...


mildly curious if Unicron is making a nemesis guiltaur or something, but we don't know, so like with bay I'm left to see it as a sad ending to a doomed universe consumed by Unicron and his heralds.

that's a different show.

 

I find it amazing, absolutely amazing that with all the techniques, progress, software, computational power and Netflix budget, they've managed to make a show that looks worse than 1990s CGI.





It's also really jarring to hear the traditional G1 transformation sound coming out of Kingdom beasts. Could they not have spent maybe 5 minutes listening to Beast Wars transformation sounds?

 

Shameless plug but I tried my hand at doing BW Megatron's voice:

 

I assumed it was a nod to Silverbolt.

 

Much better then meg’s actual actor.

 

Finished watching, it was pretty good all things considered, definitely the best out of the 3.

 

Okay, finished it off

Spoiler

I hope they make a Unicron movie to finish it off because otherwise, it ends at a cliffhanger. And that’d suck. Also, hope Nemesis and Galvatron get new forms/toys. But uhm… not transmetal.

Nemesis/Galvatron as the bigbads was pretty cool. They worked out great. Starscream as the raving anti-prophet of Unicron actually worked out really great from first trying to pass the buck of that knowledge to the autobots for plan a “run”, to standing up to Megatron with the hilarious tension breaking “I can fly” to make us all feel like ‘oh yeah, holding starscream over lava isn’t a threat’ to the end of the series.

Not enough combiners. As in zero combiners.

Ark transformation was cool. Total asspull, but cool.

I’ve commented on the voices before, but man BW Megs just failed. There were even some lines that were clearly written for a more urbane sounding David Kaye-like and they just came out wrong because they needed him to be G1 Megs’ sycophant.

 

Pleasantly surprised by the characterization of Blackarachnia (queerbaiting aside). I like that they set her up as more a pragmatist than a power hungry backstabber a'la Starscream. Also interesting that, in the overall open-ended conclusion, she had the last line of all the Cybertronians, and it was a vow to fight Unicron.

 

I don’t think the comparison is quite that straightforward. The BW and BM animation was stretched to its limits at the time, whereas WFC’s was intentionally self-limited in order to align with the toys. They wanted the cartoon models to be good advertising. Stylization aside, TFP proved that animation models could technically be better than what we’re seeing in WFC. I think the whole point is “what you see is what you can buy”. It’s a toy commercial, after all.
The more significant contrast is in the movement of the animation models. What’s not evident in still images is that the BW/BW models move like marionettes, with limbs flopping around in unnatural ways, often moving across the ground at a speed out of sync with the motions of their legs. The depth of field and angle of perspective often looks wonky on the old shows, too. Then there are the intentional idiosyncrasies like Primal’s gorilla eye roll, something that literally made me wince every time he did it. WFC’s models may be blocky and simplified in some ways, but the overall movements are markedly more natural.

 

Well, it's true to the original toys, at least. Tigatron was literally a white stripey Cheetor.

Knowing the writers' level of competence, they probably missed that it was meant to be the Voyager disk in the original show and thought it was a Cybertronian archive laserdisk or something.

Soundwave might have survived that stabbing. I think Laserbeak took the brunt of it.

 

All in all, I liked/was indifferent to most of it, except that THEY FRIDGED MY FUCKING W I F E !!! Elita and her crew got done fucking DIRTY in this season! For no reason other than to make Optimus sad! And not even a MENTION of Shockwave! They might not have needed a whole separate story arc to themselves in this season, but they needed some kind of resolution other than "everyone died, the end".

 

- Elita and her team getting offed like that really brings down the season for me since they were the stronger characters this whole trilogy
- Most of the Beast Wars characters(Especially Air Razor, Blackarachnia, and Dinobot) I thought were actually great. The Siege and Earthrise were incredibly dreary but they brought a lot of life into Kingdom
- That said, what they did to BW Megatron was unforgivable
- Galvatron and Nemesis Prime were actually pretty good endgame bosses, so to speak
- Ark transforming was a cool moment, wished we got more
- Starscream was great here, his interactions with both Blackarachnia and Dinobot are great, and I loved the direction they took him by the end
- I wished they followed up on Sunstreaker's mention, it could have given Sideswipe something to do
- Optimus Prime fucking sucks in this series. He's easily the worst portrayal of the character. If it wasn't for the fact that his toy is awesome I would have written him off completely
- Bumblebee feels like the Bee I remember fondly in the past
- I was hoping to see Rodimus and Cyclonus appear here, but I guess not

When I finished watching this I thought this was on par with Siege(which I thought was.....fine), but thinking about it more, the more I find out about things I enjoy despite all of its problem. I'd agree with the consensus that this was the best of the 3.

Dunno how I feel about the sequel bait. Honestly the only thing to me that matters about this line are the toys at this point

 

I felt like Elita could have overall been more impressive in this series (blame the voice acting) but I agree that her death was senseless. She was a helluva lot more interesting-- and a far better leader-- than Optimus Prime in this one. But then, literally everyone in WFC was more interesting to watch than Optimus Prime. Honestly, if Sunbow had ruined Optimus this badly back in the '86 movie, no one would have mourned his death enough to justify his resurrection. He's an absolutely inept decision-maker, and apparently brain-damaged considering the two-second pause required to form each of his words. Elita was decisive, compassionate, and resolute.

I was hoping in Kingdom someone would put OP out of his obvious misery and let Elita take the matrix. That's a timeline reboot that would have been worthy of continuation.

 

Thanks!