Well my girlfriend liked it. this appeals more to casual viewers than you might think.

 

What they did to Dinobot in this show has me fear that if these people ever did an Armada reboot, the same would happen to Armada Starscream. You'd have no buildup to see Starscream's conflicted motivations to defect from Megatron's abuse. There would be just an abstract hints, and Starscream's whole characterization would be just some rando seeker betraying Megatron just for the sake of how Armada Starscream did the same. But in reality just being a nostalgia copy and paste stunt taken out of context.

 

Starscream's arc is Armada was one of the best parts of the show. And yes, these people absolutely would just plop the ending of that arc into an episode with no build-up whatsoever. As a story teller myself, and someone that had to learn over the years that stories are not about the big moments, but all the moments that lead up to those big moments, these people are NOT good story tellers.

Or they're story tellers for the ADHD, Twitter, Facebook, no time for development generation.

 

Well, Kingdom was a better Beast Wars reboot than the comic was somehow. Despite having the exact same scene of Dinobot watching a girl get tortured and subsequently questioning his loyalties.

Not great, but it was nice seeing the Beast Wars cast on screen. Their models just looked better animated than any of the G1 cast did. Even Beast Megatron was an okay reinterpretation of the character for a show in which he is not meant to be the main threat. It wasn't a great show or anything, but it wasn't a constant cringe-fest like I expected. It was just kind of a dumb show that had some things to laugh at, and other things to appreciate (mostly Beast Wars stuff), but at least felt like a show this time around instead of some bizarre cringey entity.

With Dinobot, I like that they did something different with him at least. I already knew it would be impossible to compare him to the original, especially when this was 6 episodes with like three plotlines going on, but I don't think they did the worst job at condensing his character.

 

I try to view these as more of a movie reboot than a G1 reboot in the sense that this is a big-production-corp interpretation of Transformers with each chapter effectively being a 6-part "movie" and sort of distilled to the core elements for fans and a common audience.

So in that sense this is as much Dinobot we'd probably have gotten or will get in a Beast Wars Paramount movie. They got the key points right, this is a Hollywood style adaption of core stories (The War, MTMTE84, Code of Hero, Target 2006, etc) in one big story.

I think in that sense it's a game effort and a good product. Its not necessarily the fan centric super serious story we wanted, it's more or less a better movieverse imo. A Netflix-verse.

 

And yet that's as far from the target audience of this show as you can get, lol.

 

"No time for development generation".

I'm gonna use that somewhere, somehow.

 

Okay, so what does he shoot at and get blown up by? And yeah, "blown up," not disintegrated like in the original show. Easier to animate that way.

 

Probably Megatron.

 

Yeah that tracks.

 

Not gonna lie I fuxx with this more than a lot of the previous shows we got mainly because we has no humans.

 

Yeah, I can remember episode 3 of Kingdom and how they attempted to give Dinobot an honorable last stand "Code of Hero" style, only to falls somewhat flat because there's little to no build-up, as Dinobot as he appeared in Kingdom, didn't really do anything to make anyone invested in his character beyond "OMG, I recognized that character from the Beast Wars cartoon from decades ago!!!". His death in Kingdom where the Maximals mourned for him also feels out of nowhere as a result.

The writers seem to remember that BW Dinobot is an honorable warrior who somehow landed on the wrong side and his iconic "Code of Hero" moment, but what they seem to forget is all of the character arc and build-up the character got throughout that show to makes Dinobot's growth satisfying to watch.

If there's anything that any epic moments from any anime or movies I've watched manage to do; It isn't really the specific moments themselves that is "epic", but rather it's all of the character arcs, plot progression that build-up to that specific moment that makes it "epic", as you have a set of the main cast like in The Avengers who may not get along at first, but as the plot develops they gradually grow and put their differences aside to do the right thing together.

If they set on using the same people for the "Legacy" show and Armada Starscream in it, rather than having a steady build-up where his character slowly learns to genuinely care about others and ended his character arc putting his revenge towards Megatron aside, sacrificing himself in a last-ditch effort to save those he grows to care about; I do fear that they would "speed-run" Armada Starscream's character in the same way as Kingdom Dinobot, where all we'll see out of him is a random Seeker betraying Megatron and sacrificing himself heroically for no reason with no context, which would be terrible (Speaking from someone who was a huge fan of the character)

 

Apparently this is not the Marvel/Sunbow timeline of G1. The unaltered timeline of the series is completely differfent but has the same "DNA" as G1 except Optimus Prime dies and never brings back the AllSpark.

I was confused by the Galvatron hates Megatron each other in the original timeline. If I am not mistaken it is implied that Galvatron indirectly led Predacon Megatron to the Golden Disk.

I think the problem lies in that Hasbro is in the business of selling toys and not telling stories. Keep in mind, the success of the Transformers franchise in 80s was due to Marvel's involvement in creating the characters and stories.

I'll admit that Earthrise was like filler in the trilogy. I didn't see the point in having the storyline of Elita and her troops. If you cut out the that Cybertron subplot in Earthrise, it would still work out, making the arrival back to Cybertron a surprise/shock for audience. I think it would have been better if Autobots return to Cybertron ruled by Shockwave and Elita and her band enslaved, and having some battle to stop him, etc. But I am guessing budget reasons prevented them from doing more with the series.

I watched from Seige thinking it is a re-imagining of the G1 storyline but once they got to Kingdom I realized they are trying to do something different. I guess it makes sense to have the Beast Wars stuff to show Optimus the consequences of his actions- learning of what become of Cybertron in his absence.

 

One can reason they ran is because the road was obstrcuted with debris, so it make sense to just run through it.

Also, why would you accept a treaty from an evil force?? It makes sense not to accept a treaty from a tyrannical side. Not only that, we do not know the terms of the treaty which I presume to be on the toltatarian side of things.

I'll do admit that the "unsure of himself' Optimus Prime was hard to accept. This type of characterization would be appropriate for Rodimus Prime but I think for many of us, we have always had an Optimus Prime that was sure of himself and his decisions.

But overall the video is just too cynical and pedantic to be take seriously.

 

I managed to choke down Kingdom while playing with Lego to keep my mind from focusing on the lack of effort. Even so, so much of the dialog just veers off in weird directions that it's hard to understand . . . WTF they think the scene is at any given moment. Black Arachnia and Starscream as a team could have worked really well, but . . . flat. Primal being a massive asshole was a "new" take. Then again, Optimus Prime is the biggest asshole in that universe, so it stands to reason all Primes must be.

Kingdom was better than the other two chapters. And yes, that's damning with faint praise. But at least it felt like there was *SOME* attempt to put together a vague sense of a plot direction.

Now, maybe the next "chapter" could be made in a way where it doesn't smack of hollow nothing burger bleh? Sorry, there are those pesky hopes again.

 

Doesn't explain why the fliers pursued on foot, though. As a matter of fact they transform back to robot mode to do so. These idiots could've easily overtaken them if they stayed in jet form, yet elected to ignore that fact because animation budget.

 

That's pretty obvious from the first episode.

Well if I'm not mistaken that version of Galvatron that you're referring to is actually an entirely different character and not a future version of Megatron... even though he still looks exactly like the Galvatron who is a future version of Megatron... I'm kind of confused by that too, I never read the comics but apparently there are 2 Galvatrons.

In Kingdom, yes. He literally says that in the series. Not sure about the original Beast Wars. There's nothing suggesting that the original Galvatron is even still around when Beast Wars takes place but in Kingdom it's made explicitly clear that they originated from the same time period.

You kind of contradicted yourself there. You fully admit that that the only reason Transformers was even successful in the first place is because of the characters and stories, but you also claim that Hasbro is not in the business of telling stories. While it's true their primary business is selling toys, it's also in their best interest to have a good story to promote those toys otherwise people would lose interest in the toys. They've gotten to a point where doing one is dependent on the other so technically it's in Hasbro's best interest, in the name of selling toys, to have a good story.

Of course Hasbro is still not the ones actually writing the stories, they outsource all that to different writing teams like Marvel, Sunbow, Mainframe, IDW and Roosterteeth just to name a few. I don't see it as really a problem that Hasbro aren't writers... except when they try to claim that two or more entirely different stories that contradict each other are some how suppose to be in the same continuity. Hasbro should stop trying to decide what continuity is and let the writers decide that on their own.

So many different continuities have been screwed by Hasbro interference I'm fully convinced they have no idea what that word even means.

I think it still was a surprise/shock. It was never clear that everyone on Cybertron had died. The ending to that story line was kind of ambiguous so to find out, oh everyone's freaking dead in the next series rather than resolving anything is a HUGE shock I never thought they'd do.

I think it's time constraints rather than budget. Each season was only 6 episodes long. If they came back to a Shockwave ruled Cybertron then the ending would of felt more rushed since there'd be way too many plot threads hanging around to properly address them in that short amount of time. They could of done more if they had a usual 20 episodes per season run rather than condensing everything down to 6 episodes. That would be a total of 60 episode instead of 18. The whole trilogy combined is 2 episodes short of a regular season of a series that would air on regular TV.

This is what I hate about streaming services by the way... you're essentially paying MORE for LESS content. It should just be bundled together with your regular service provider rather than being a whole separate thing or give me something MORE to make paying MORE actually worth it.

Note: My ex has streaming but no regular TV right now. So I'm watching this stuff at her house. I've also noticed some free trial offers which I've managed to take advantage of to just binge the shows I want to watch during the trial period and then peace out till the next thing comes along.

Even better if a show has a DVD release like Picard as that's usually cheaper than a monthly subscription to whatever streaming service they release it on. My dad has the first season of Picard. I'll likely be getting season 2 myself to go with the rest of my Q collection.  

OK I don't even know what to call what you just said there... What's the opposite of a Contradiction?

Technically when you previously thought one thing and later realized something different those two thoughts SHOULD contradict each other... but what you're saying here doesn't make any sense because those two thoughts DON'T contradict each other. It IS a re-imagining of the G1 storyline. The fact that they are trying to do something different isn't a new thought that replaces the old one, that's just the definition of what a re-imagining is.

Also because Beast Wars was literally part of G1 continuity originally anyway though in the original time line the Autobots and Decepticons crashed on Earth FIRST and went into Stasis Lock for 6 billion years. The Maximals and Predacons came some time later and discovered the Autobots and Decepticons already on Earth in the third season. They didn't really interact with each other at all since the G1 cast were all in Stasis Lock the entire time. Though they did meet Starscream as a disembodied Spark from the future and a future version of Ravage who had been rebuilt as a Predacon.

It's too bad they couldn't incorporate Predacon Ravage into the story some how, would like to see how he interacts with Soundwave and his past Decepticon incarnation. Maybe they could even finally explain how the Predacon version speaks with a Russian accent while the Decepticon version just growls.

 

You have the rest right, but was 4 million years. The Earth isn't 6 billion years old. More like 4.5 billion or so.

 

"Cynical and pedantic" are practically words the Netflix series lives by. Why even bother to give such a shoddy production quarter when it's so obvious the people making it didn't care at all? You give credit where credit is due.

 

Virtual Dave and I finally got around to 'reviewing' Kingdom and having a good old chat about the trilogy as a whole. Maybe you'd like to listen to it?

AARGH! MY OPTICS! is a podcast where two adult men discuss, over analyse and generally take a kids toy and media franchise a little too seriously! The toy and media franchise in question usually being The Transformers! We've done episodes on all three parts of WFC now, culminating in a bumper Kingdom and series review out today.

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