Listen, I'm the self-admitted worlds worst GeeWunner, and have no love for Beast Wars whatsoever. But even *I* watched this thing and thought, "Uh... isn't BW Megatron supposed to be a bad-ass? Is he just... PRETENDING to be the world's biggest wimp?"

 

Streaming seems to have embraced telling an episode worth of story and stretching it out, padding it with boring monologues and long scenes. It's very weird. Family Guy skewered them perfectly for this.

I don't really get it. How hard is it to understand you don't reinvent the concept of pacing? Netflix has become like the straight to DVD bin's boring uncle. Honestly, straight to DVD stuff, like DCEU animated, has become better. It's just slow, cheaply made crap.

I really don't care about recasting. Peter Cullen is 80, let the man retire. Heck, get Kevin Conroy to voice Optimus Prime. I just think there's no way we can't do better than boring, drawn out cartoons. It isn't just War for Cybertron. MoTU is the same way. As are most of the animes I have tried to get into on Netflix. Even the Marvel shows have had this problem. Falcon and Winter Soldier has an episode where they circle a block for a whole hour.

 

I wouldn't call him a bad ass or a wimp. I mean he did conquer Cybertron for a while but when I hear the words "Bad Ass" I think someone who can get stuff done through sheer brute force alone and that's not the way Megatron operates. His power level is about on par between Beast Wars and Kingdom, it's just his intelligence and skill that seems to have been greatly diminished. Maybe they did it because it's hard to picture BW Megatron taking orders from anyone, even his G1 name sake.

I think BW Megatron would see himself as more of an equal to G1 Megatron not an idiot loyalist who just blindly idolizes him. If G1 Megatron refused to treat BW Megatron as an equal which I'm pretty sure he wouldn't, BW Megatron would be like if you're not going to with me as an equal then there's only room for one Megatron and the two would end up fighting each other. Not sure who would actually win though, I mean I think G1 Megatron as an experienced Gladiator would be a stronger combatant but BW Megatron is actually the more intelligent of the two and Kingdom kind of messed that up by making Beast Megatron an idiot.

 

You'd be the first person to describe MoTU Revelation as "drawn out," if anything many people are furious at the breakneck pace that doesn't give time for the story beats to breathe.

We're on the same side, SaberPrime.

 

I voted yes thinking this series was gonna be good man was I wrong. Finished Kingdom and it has a lot of problems one of them being the voice acting its all over the place and the ending just made me feel like huh ok.

 

I just though Kingdom was really neat. It was the only part of the trilogy I looked forward to finishing (Couldn't make it through earthrise) and the sad bits actually had me care about the characters. I also really enjoyed time travel beasts bots Boogaloo and the whole final episodes premise starting with the hillside scene.

 

I really wish the poll could be edited to "I'm fwum the future..."

 

I can't speak for others, nor do I. I found the whole scene where Man-at-Arms did the dramatic will they won't they to be far too long. That whole scene can be accomplished in one line of dialogue. The backstory of Teela between, the episode against TriClops, while some of that was technically "action" was just unnecessary to the plot. It's 5 pounds of story in a 20 pound bag. Same thing with War for Cybertron.

These shows are just hyper-extended films, not movies. Not all of them, to be fair, but most of them. Even the good ones often take a season to get going.

The nice thing about Transformers Generation 1 is you can watch an episode while you're on the bike at the gym, or making dinner. These shows usually are just the middle between the start and another vague cliffhanger.

The other thing both Animated and Beast Wars showed is the need for genuine humor. Not kids jokes, although there was an entire farting episode with Rhinox, but genuine humor. We're talking Marvel movie humor. We're talking M*A*S*H. People making the best of a bad situation. This was just far too dour.

I don't want to keep beating up on the voice actors either. It was a non-union shoot, hopefully the good ones will get union work out of this. It was 100% the director and casting directors fault. They had no vision, didn't try with some, did try with others. Just a weird mix.

There's no way the same guy voiced every line for Optimus Primal. His voice changed drastically over the show. That's how you know the director did a horrible job.

 

Kingdom - and the trilogy as a whole - turned out to be a solid addition to the Transformers mythos. The last episode in particular really struck a cord with me. Though

Spoiler

ending the series on a cliffhanger

was an interesting choice from the filmmakers.

 

I like this cliffhanger far more than the one in Power of the Primes, and I didn’t even dislike that show. The difference is I was done with that universe, but I personally wouldn’t mind going back to the WFC series

 

Um... you say Non-union here like that's inherently going to lead to bad voice acting. Non-union actors are still actors. That has nothing to do with the quality of voice acting. The only actual difference it makes is for the actors.

Non-Union actors get paid less.

Union actors get paid more but actually because they have to pay union dues they actually end up making less money anyway. Unless you're a super well known Hollywood actor you're not really going to make enough for the union to actually be worth it. And the sad fact is, voice actors, guys like Peter Cullen, are never going to make enough for Unions to ever be worth it.

Another difference is... while being in a Union is SUPPOSE to help prioritize you over non-union actors so you get more work it's actually the other way around. Union Actors literally aren't allowed to work non-union jobs which just means if a new company wants to hire Union actors they have to get certified by the Union first. Some actors will by pass this and take non-union roles under a different name. Non-union actors however can work ANYWHERE and since companies to hire them for less money they will. Usually union jobs will have to hire a certain number of Union actors which is determined by the cast size of whatever production they're working on but that tends to be why the lead roles mostly go to big names while supporting characters will usually be unknowns. Except in rare cases like the Superman director insisting that Superman should be an at the time unknown actor and not a celebrity.

Every actor has at some point in their career been non-union. You need a certain amount of experience under your belt before you can even get in the union in the first place. The same goes for companies. Some actors CHOOSE not to even join unions because it's really more of a hassle than it's actually worth and they have all these strict rules that limit the amount of work you can get. Again like I said, unless you're a big name hollywood actor appearing in front of the camera you're never going to make enough money to where joining the union is actually worth it. Despite union actors getting paid more no matter how well known they might be the thing is that extra pay is what you get before taxes, union dues, and other bills get paid off. The amount you have left after paying those bills usually turns out to be LESS because you're paying Union dues which if you're not in a union is one less bill to pay for.

Also I should note, Stage, Film, and I'm assuming voice actors all have their own separate unions. Actors Equity for stage, Screen Actors Guild (SAG) for film, and you can join both unions work in both places, it's the same process. I've worked with several union actors who actually regret joining unions. Obviously I can't name them because like I said, they're technically not allowed to work non-union jobs and if I named them that could be damaging to their careers.

Anyway... even when Machinima was working with Union actors the voice acting was still terrible so it's really all about the voice direction. Being Union or non-union has really nothing to do with the quality of the voice talent.

But the same guy DID voice every line for Optimus Primal... There's literally only one voice credit to his name. And the voice didn't change drastically... even if if did how would that mean it wasn't the same guy? Caboose's voice changed drastically from the first episode of Red vs. Blue to how most people know him now and that's still the same person doing the voice. The reason the voice changed is because when they started Red vs. Blue they didn't really know what they wanted the show to be, there was no plan for an over arching story. The characters kind of evolved as they went along and they eventually settled into the characters. It's a pretty fair comparison considering the same guys who make Red vs. Blue also made the War for Cybertron Trilogy although by this point they have gotten past their awkward recording out of someone's garage with no plans stage to being an actual professional animation studio.

UT Megatron actually has 3 Voice Actors and no one even noticed. David Kaye is the main voice actor for all three series however the episode "Energon Grid" from Transformers Energon Megatron was voiced by Richard Newman and in the episode "Fallen" from Transformers Cybertron Megatron was played by Trevor Devall. Not sure why David Kaye wasn't available to record those episodes but while I'm bringing them up anyway... Either of those guys would of been better to recast as BW Megatron than the guy we got in Kingdom.

Anyway the best voice actors are well known for being able to change their voice drastically to sound like multiple different people... though typically not while playing the same role... but Primal doesn't sound like multiple people, he sounds like one guy... actually acting... instead of speaking in a monotone voice like a lot of other characters tend to do in this series.

I honestly get the feeling you don't even understand what voice acting is and just want to hate on everything about the series just for the sake of hating on it. I mean the only thing I agree with is that the director did a horrible job but the way you came to that conclusion makes no sense what so ever. I mean you have the TERRIBLE Predacon Megatron, the inaudible Soundwave no one can even understand, Optimus... Prime... taking... exceptionally... long... pauses... so... it... takes... forever... to... finish... a... sentence... to complain about and you choose one of the better characters to complain about for a dumb reason that doesn't even make sense? WHY?

 

I did not miss your paragraphs.

 

BW Megs wasn't what I'd call a "bad ass." He was arrogant, manipulative, and always had a plan and backup plan, but he was not a guns blazing, "I will kick your ass" type, unless the situation degenerated to the point where he felt that was the only option left to him.

Maybe the voice actors became so bored during the "reading" that they forgot who was supposed to be reading which lines?

 

I'm probably in the minority here, but I enjoyed this series. Sure, I'm grading on a curve because there isn't any other current TF content, but I was thoroughly entertained. I could nitpick it to death, but what's the point, really?

Like everyone else mentioned, the most glaring nit, the voice acting, was brutal. It's like everyone's scripts had periods and pauses... After. Every. Word... and Optimus' voice actor, who is CLEARLY doing his best Cullen impersonation, can't hold the voice under stress scenes. When he has to yell or project the voice, it sounds like a completely different person. You think the voice director would have told him, "Hey! Just don't yell." Megatron and Galvatron always had the need to groan and grunt before they speak. "Mrrrmmmm... Errrrrhhh..." I actually found that comical.

The aforementioned said, I still enjoyed the series and look forward to the next installment when we get more of Unicron. I wonder if he's going to meltdown Nemesis and Galvatron to make new villainous bots...

 

After reading pages of comments, it would seem that the writers and the director simply did not have the vision most of us expected them to have.

I don't think the voice actors had as much blame for this as most of the comments have suggested. Their direction was aweful though. The writers were obviously under some sort of mandate from a higher authority that didn't care how the story was told, just that it was a story.

The first two chapters could've been reduced to one single chapter on Cybertron and Earthrise could've been the first half of Kingdom, leaving the story to have been better flushed out and character development better established.
That is the overall message that is felt from this forum. That, and BW Megs' was an overly fawning fanboy who probably has daddy issues and lived in his mother's basement before travelling into space.

Have I missed anything?

 

Oh yeah... I almost forgot... at one point Optimus Prime calls Rhinox and asks him for the code he used to wipe Teletraan-1's Dead Universe data. Optimus shouldn't even know about that since he had been out in the field looking for the AllSpark and wasn't on the Ark when Rhinox did that. Also Rhinox says something and gets cut off as the call just ends. Like there's no conversation about what he needs the code for and then some chip pops out of Prime's arm that he puts into what is essentially just a hologram no where near the actual AllSpark and that works? Why does flying through the Dead Universe effect the ship and the AllSpark passing through it but non of the Ark's passenger's are effected?

So let me get this straight... Rhinox can't hear Optimus talking about the Dead Universe when they're in the same room but Optimus can hear Rhinox from miles away in a different location? It's almost as if the information characters do or don't know is entirely dependent on plot convenience and not on their actual proximity to be able to communicate information to each other.

 

Yeah, the voice acting is horrendous. The fact that it's "non-union" should have been enough for the TF community to boycott this train wreck from the start. But since we didn't, we earned this shit pile. This whole series is a big reminder that "you get what you pay for." Optimus Primal and BW Megatron got shit on so hard that I'm surprised the original Beast Wars show didn't become sentient just so it could kill itself. What a horrible way to treat BW's legacy.

 

Are you trying to say WFC is just a screwed up timeline of the original cartoon?

Cause even if that's what the showrunners were trying for, which they weren't, BW wasn't a sequel to the G1 cartoon anyway, but G1 as a whole, so Jetfire on Cybertron would work anyway if you go the Marvel comic way.

 

I work in film, and while you entirely missed my point, yes, non-union actors on the whole will be less talented than their union peers. There can be some benefits to remaining non-union, particularly when you are getting a reel together, but it's minor league baseball - maybe even more like little league.

If you want to die on this hill though, please continue.

Familiarize yourself with the concept of hyperbole please.

 

Remember when cereal commercials and read-along books in the 80s would hire unknown actors because they were too cheap to pay the real voice actors? Like, I don't know who that is, but it ain't Skeletor! This whole series is a cheap knock off read-along book. (Actually that may be an insult to read-along books. Even they weren't as bad as this show.)

EDIT -
Here's a Transformers version...

LOL! This entire show is a read-along that someone tried to animate!