Netflix Kingdom Reviews - Share and Discuss

Discussion in 'Transformers News and Rumors' started by Tony_Bacala, Jul 22, 2021.

  1. Rakzo

    Rakzo Peruvian Transformers Fan

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    You could make a better argument if you compared Kingdom to Netflix Castlevania. Masters of the Universe: Revelation is a beautifully animated but EXTREMELY badly written series with a forced plot, terrible characterization (I wasn't even against Teela getting a more prominent role but when you make a character's biggest fear basically: "I am too great" then you're simply creating a Mary Sue) and some of the cringiest dialogue that I've seen on a show recently, probably even worse than the one in WFC.

    This doesn't come much as a surprise though since, while I have my complaints with Warren Ellis (writer of Castlevania), he's simply a much better writer in every sense of the word than Kevin Smith (who handled Masters of the Universe). And consider that I really liked Smith's runs on Daredevil and Green Arrow when I say that.
     
  2. rikkomba

    rikkomba Hunger

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    Just finished Kingdom E6
    I enjoyed it, but for sure the first 4 episodes could have told their story in 2 or 3.
    The plot is fairly basic - civil war, escape planet and get hijacked, recover the allspark. After 18 episodes, I have good memories of the civil war, I will remember Autobots and Maximals fighting together, but I am not even sure Earthrise was necessary at all - a bit like its toyline.
     
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  3. Hoffman

    Hoffman Well-Known Member

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    Kevin Smith didn't write MOTU, he was just the showrunner.

    I'm also not sure Teela qualifies as a Mary Sue, since the whole story seems to be leading to the reveal that

    She's the sorceress' daughter

    Isn't the whole concept of a Mary Sue that they are overpowered out of nowhere? This show isn't doing that at all. It's showing her journey to find her power, which has a narrative backstory.

    Of course I don't really even agree with the entire concept of a Mary Sue, since it seems to be used predominantly by men to complain about powerful female characters. Most of these nostalgia-driven pop culture icons also just have arbitrary unearned powers. Not sure why different standards get applied when it's a female hero.
     
    Last edited: Jul 30, 2021
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  4. T-Hybrid

    T-Hybrid Gnodab Kidult (He/Him)

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    Meh. People freaking out over a platonic sarcastic kiss on the cheek are worth laughing at.

    You can think it's dumb, but people are blowing it out of proportion. If you weren't one of them, you've got nothing to be upset about.
     
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  5. Rakzo

    Rakzo Peruvian Transformers Fan

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    It has all the classic corny Smith lines though so I'm pretty sure he had a hand at the writing.
    I personally hate the term "Mary Sue" because is thrown everywhere these days by, let's say, less than ideal people but Revelation's Teela simply falls in place perfectly because of how much of the focus goes to her and not even in a positive way. The already mentioned fear of being "too great" is a huge red flag but then they made the frikking death of Adam all about her because they hid his identity as He-Man from her and she's upset for pretty much the rest of the series despite that Adam sacrificed himself to save all of them (Oh, and let's not forget the blatantly blunt mention of all Teela's accomplishments in just the first 2 minutes of the series instead of, you know, actually showing them).
    Meh. I wasn't even freaking out about it. Think before you write.
     
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  6. WolverineDragon

    WolverineDragon Banned

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    Mary sues are characters who are basically flawless. It was meant to refer to of types in fanfics, but the term has been used to described as established characters. Can’t say if teela qualifies as such, but she doesn’t sound as bad as other characters in animation that I seen.
     
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  7. Hoffman

    Hoffman Well-Known Member

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    I guess Superman is a Mary Sue.
     
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  8. T-Hybrid

    T-Hybrid Gnodab Kidult (He/Him)

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    Yep. Nothing about this has anything to do with BW, BM, or any of the JP stuff.

    Just like the first two seasons were completely separate from G1.
     
  9. Rakzo

    Rakzo Peruvian Transformers Fan

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    One of Superman's biggest fears is not living-up to the expectations the whole world has about him so basically the opposite.
     
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  10. Jakedc1997

    Jakedc1997 Well-Known Member

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    I've said it since the beginning and I'll say it again and again. The voice acting sounds like it's little kids trying to imitate the voices while they're smashing their toys together. That combined with most of the character models being super close to the toys tells me that the terrible voice acting was a conscious decision to make kids who watch the show feel like it's something "dark" and "adult" they could imagine. Interesting concept strictly on paper, but as soon as it left the page it should have been scrapped immediately
     
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  11. T-Hybrid

    T-Hybrid Gnodab Kidult (He/Him)

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    Then I wasn't talking about you, was I. Gotta think before your write.

    It's a term that's lost its meaning over time. It was intended as shorthand for a creator's OP self-insert character and evolved in to "character I don't like."

    It's healthier to just have the conversation about a character's strengths and weaknesses versus dismissing it with an empty buzzword.
     
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  12. TheUltimateBum

    TheUltimateBum Nautica Lover

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    That whole getting 90% of the characters wrong is pure malarkey. I still can't believe people still are saying that when it's far from the truth and we actually saw some of these aspects hinted at in BW (Optimus getting more into the mystical by season three, Rattrap hinting about feeling naked without guns and we see that firsthand in Beast Machines, and Cheetor actually growing into a leader).

    Heck, I found the BM versions of the characters far better because they didn't change the characters: they ADDED and EXPANDED to them. Seriously, I hated Silverbolt in BW, but in Beast Machines, I actually loved him. And as much as I liked BA in BW, even I must admit that there wasn't too much to her other than deviousness and swagger, whereas in BM, she became a much more engaging and vulnerable character and I must say, I preferred her as the one trying to help Silverbolt find himself than the other way around.

    And Barneytron... he had a new philosophy that he must have established over the years (you gotta remember that he freed himself and fell out of the Transwarp drive, potentially arriving at Cybertron years before the Maximals), but he still remained the same foppish egotist with a god complex of before with a flair for the dramatic and a taste for the ironic.

    Nope. Seriously, Superman may be powerful, but one thing that actually added to the character, especially in its early years in the radio show and the 50's Superman TV show is that he is actually alone in our world. There is a sense of loneliness to the guy up until the introduction of other Kryptonians, but before that, he was pretty much one person trying hard to keep a secret. This scene really speaks volumes to how much the character has to endure in order to keep his secret even from common crooks:

     
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  13. Strife

    Strife Well-Known Member

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    I disagree for a few reasons.

    First, I think of what Transformers Generation 1's cartoon history actually is. The first season was pretty tightly plotted and a more or less serious take with serious stakes. The entire 16 episode season, ending with Heavy Metal War tells one complete story more or less. After production of Season 1, production began on the movie and Season 2 simultaneously. Season 2 was far looser, more episodic, and with more varying quality. We got Megatron's Sphynx robot, or the time he turned New York City into New Cybertron. We also got some great lore shows, but we also got B.O.T, and Kremzeek.

    I don't think it's controversial to say though that without the movie, Transformers never would have survived to this day. I would say specifically without the first third of the movie (the Battle of Autobot City), it wouldn't have. It wasn't just that it killed major characters (though that was part of it). It was that it treated the entire war, franchise and characters seriously and its animation is so good it stands up to this very day. The Megatron worth remembering isn't the one that built the giant Sphinx robot, but the one that exploited a massive intelligence failure by the autobots to sneak into Autobot city and nearly wipe out the Autobot's ability to fight in the war at all.

    The Autobots of G1 people envision in their heads, I think in large part, are these more "serious" transformers. Not grimdark shit, but a world where Spike does say "Shit" and one in which Megatron has strategies, not schemes, and they are serious and dangerous not kooky and weird. To a degree, this is also why Marvel G1 was liked so much for so long.

    MOTU never got this treatment. Skeletor was a ham and a loser the entire time. He-Man never stuck him with the pointy end. It never had its equivalent of the Transformers movie. The closest is the live action MOTU movie, which was different but also amazing in its own way, with Frankl Langella's Skeletor giving a S-tier supervillain performance in every respect, from look to mannerism to dialog. But part of it is very 80s too and its lasting impact on MOTU was nothing like Transformers the Movie.

    I think Kevin Smith set out to give MOTU its version of Transformers the Movie, 40 years later. I think with Revelation he largely achieved that. Like how "Transformers G1 being serious" exists really only in parts of Season 1, the movie and in our heads, he is delivering a version of MOTU that only existed in fans heads. I've loved it for that. I think it's a worthy endeavor. I also recognize that it's a story that's half over, and the reaction from some segments of fandom just have me rolling my eyes that, here we are, yet again, and folks don't want things to happen to their holy characters that *might* lead to *gasp* character development. Really, everyone wants to play with their Toys on their bed like they were children again, and don't want to follow other people (in this case, Kevin Smith) as he plays with those toys on screen and tells his tale.

    Lastly, the whole Mary Sue thing? That's a big fat shrug to me. It's a nothing accusation at this point. I've lost track of how many stories, franchise, games, movies, comic books and tv shows I've watched over the past 10 or 15 years where, whenever there is a strong, competent female lead character, someone gets out the Mary Sue painball gun. I don't think it's a thing ever. I don't think it's real. I think the Mary Sue trope has been so exhausted that accusation of the trope being in effect is the new trope. It's pretty stupid, really. These are action cartoons, or video games or comic book / fantasy movies. They're not high art. They're not exploration of the human condition. I'm not going to really worry about my female lead character being a bit overpowered and "over successful" when the story is about a quest to repair a fucking magic sword split between two alternate dimensions on the Planet Eternia. Gimme a break. Do people need more work to do or something, they're so bored to care about such crap?

    It comes down to this for me with MOTU: Revelation: it's gorgeously animated, it has great voice actors, and it continues the original story in a manner that really only existed in our heads while adding to the lore. I would like to see that for Transformers, rather than another terribly animated forgettable story made by the Red vs Blue guys, because they're dirt cheap, voice acted by bargain bin non-Union talent, and written by someone who doesn't care for the source material whatsoever.

    A week ago BW Scorponok as BW Megatron was not a thing. Now it is going to (rightfully) be the meme of the Kingdom animated series forever, just like Rageimus Prime has been for this whole misbegotten saga. My childhood aint ruined or anything like that, but I like at MOTU: Revelation and just wonder what could have been.
     
  14. Obsidian X

    Obsidian X Dork of the moon

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    Cog and Scrapface, the true heros of the franchise got a gigantic monument at the end - All is well that ends well!

    To my surprise I kind of enjoyed it, better than the first installment and much better than the second, which I struggled with (when Cog and Scrapface wasn't on the screen obviously).
    Beast Wars Megatron being a totally diffrent character was jarring though.

    Now give me a multipack of Cog repaints dammit!
     
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  15. Such Heroic Nonsense

    Such Heroic Nonsense No!

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    I literally fell asleep around the episode 4 mark, but on the whole just really glad it's over.

    Kinda half enjoyed the first installment back in 2020. The other two have been mostly badly scripted drivel far as I can tell.

    Erase, rewind, start over.

    Just not with the same team behind this crap, ta.
     
  16. Rakzo

    Rakzo Peruvian Transformers Fan

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    You responded directly to me.

    Also:

    "You".
     
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  17. Autobot N

    Autobot N Wants a Legacy Sunstorm

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  18. Verno

    Verno Beast Wars Collector

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    They really missed a trick not including Waspinator. Who better to be the basis for a heap of drones to get slagged in every confrontation.

    It also would have given them a flying option. Part of the threat of the Predacons in Season 1 of Beast Wars was their aerial advantage, until Airazor arrived and balanced the equation.
     
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  19. Philip164

    Philip164 Board Member

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    The WFC Trilogy felt Slow, and Shallow, I think Cyberverse was much Better it was fun.

    WFC felt like they wanted to get to the next part, but had to pad things out; and once they got to the next part, the same thing happens again.

    I honestly don't think they did what they wanted to do, and fulfilled a Work Order. I honestly feel the entire series could have been condensed into fewer episodes. and then there are cut corners to designs, and lack of on screen transformations.

    At least the Toyline was mostly good.
     
  20. RKillian

    RKillian http://www.rktoyandhobby.com

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    Writers and animators have always made a game of slipping things past the unobservant. The more talented are subtle about it and don't do it with the audience's cringe alarms already blaring.
     
    Last edited: Jul 30, 2021
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