Transformers Prime-Love or Hate It

Discussion in 'Transformers Earthspark and Cartoon Discussion' started by Stereotypical Screamer, Dec 28, 2021.

  1. Stereotypical Screamer

    Stereotypical Screamer The Original Headmaster

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    I’m rewatching Transformers Prime over the break, and I am again reminded of how brilliant and also ridiculous it is.

    Transformers Prime features some of the very best when it comes to the Decepticons. For one thing, they are villains not just goofy bad guys. In the first few minutes of the first episode an Autobot actually dies, and is notably stabbed via Starscream’s bare hands.
    Megatron beating Starscream to a pulp, hinting if not showing a sadistic and torturous side of the Decepticons (RIP Silas), and a more explored side of Transformers warfare than just things than shoot lasers ie. Cortical psychic patch. The Iacon relics were also a refreshing change that did not feature the overused Allspark.

    On the not so impressive side of Prime is the Autobots. The kids are annoying, and way too involved. Every Transformers cartoon balances this but it bothers me more in Prime given that the Decepticons are actually competent villains. The Autobots also seem entirely reactive to the Decepticons actions instead of having any actual plans themselves. And Arcees stank attitude and flashbacks gets old.

    Overall though, I love Prime and was very sad when Season 3 seemed to abruptly end with only half the episodes of previous seasons. Do you love it, hate it, and why? I’m sure the show has been discussed before on the threads but I’d love to rehash it.
     
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  2. No Silly Business

    No Silly Business Well-Known Member

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    What are the odds, I've just this evening finished it.



    I really liked it overall.



    I agree with your points on the kids being a bit annoying, but once the show settles in, and it gets comfortable with them in the plot (and not just Miko or Jack doing something silly to get them into trouble), I felt they meshed nicely into the cast.



    The decepticons in this are great - between Megatron, Starscream, Soundwave, Shockwave, Breakdown, Knockout, Predaking... they're overall fantastic, which really makes the show feel like the stakes are high. Basically everyone on that team is 100% capable. There is no one who exists just for laughs or poor repeating gags.



    Standout favourite is probably Knockout. His voice actor steals every scene he's in.



    The autobots are ok. I felt initially felt the late inclusion of Smokescreen and his "hints of going to be a prime" was going to lead to serious cringe, but it actually ended with some really great introspection on his part:



    "And to think that Optimus almost passed the Matrix down to me. Yeah I said it, but right place, right time, doesn't mean right bot. I know that now."



    I also felt Ultra Magnus deserved more payoff - he wandered in and tried to bully everyone into "respecting the command structure"... And no one stood up to him. When Ultra Magnus confided in Optimus during a moment of doubt, not even Optimus Prime told him the truth of "you're acting like a jerk to people who have been fighting for a long time outside of a command structure, read the room".



    Which sort of leads me to one of my main problems of Prime (the show), which is the big bot himself.



    He comes across really passive for a lot of the show. He could easily have been the one to tell Magnus that leaders don't always need to be called Sir, and that leaders can draw great value from their people asking questions and acting of their own accord. Instead he made a vague statement about the autobots becoming family (Fast and Furious lawyers incoming!).





    I'd have like to have seen less treasure hunting throughout the show, a lot of it was one group gaining a macguffin, just for the other side to get hold of it.



    But overall, really good show. Thoroughly got caught up in it over Christmas, and sad now to have to find another.
     
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  3. Stereotypical Screamer

    Stereotypical Screamer The Original Headmaster

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    My friends were once watching Team America: World Police and I heard the character Sportswoode, I came running in the room screaming “OMG that’s Knockout!!!” I exposed myself as diehard TF fan. Norris’ voice is perfect for Knockouts character. I did hate how Prime turned him into an Autobot in the end

    Agreed, passive is how I would describe a lot of Team Prime. I wish Wheeljack wasn’t the rogue character for awhile because he was a nice change to the “react not act” mentality the Autobots had a lot of the time. I welcomed the inclusion of Smokescreen, who seemed to me was a different version of G1 Hot Rod
     
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  4. Blam320

    Blam320 Assembly Inventor

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    I don't particularly like it. The animation and action scenes are great, but those - as well as Knockout and Soundwave, for being actually creative characters - are the only redeeming qualities. The writing is monotonous, and the characterizations can be downright insulting. Optimus Prime stands out as a particularly bad iteration of the character; as I've said elsewhere, he feels like a cardboard cutout: physically there, but lacking any depth.
     
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  5. RADimus prime

    RADimus prime not so well known member just known

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    Loved it was a great show. It is what it is. No show is perfect not even BW or Animated soooo.
     
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  6. fallenspartan

    fallenspartan Banned

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    TFP is one of the best transformers cartoons hands down!
     
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  7. TalonX2

    TalonX2 Member

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    I have issues with the way some of the characters are written and how the show introduced way too many cool elements, characters, and plotlines that it just refused to follow up on. For instance, I didn't like how Mech was handled, Smokescreen and Jack both had something super interesting set up that ultimately went nowhere, I thought Nemesis Prime was super cool but am kind of annoyed they did nothing with him for the rest of the show, and the way the Orion Pax subplot resolved itself was really disappointing to me when I felt they could have done something with it on the long run. Season 2 just being a boring relic hunt was also super noticeable to me even as a kid, and I think I've always found Arcee to be a really annoying character. Idk that's just me ig

    That said, I am a big fan of the voice acting and like some of the character designs, and the action is pretty heckin sweet. I thought Smokescreen, Dwayne The Rock Johnson, Ratchet, Fowler, and pretty much all of the Decepticons were fun too so there's that, and most of season 1 was kinda solid ayyy, main theme goes kinda hard
     
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  8. Stereotypical Screamer

    Stereotypical Screamer The Original Headmaster

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    The cutout is a very accurate analogy. I will also never be comfortable seeing Optimus without a faceplate.

    Yes! Example: the Decepticon Makeshift. (Episode 8 Con Job) You have a character with the skill to literally transform himself into a different Transformer, seems like that would be highly valued and not a character used to essentially fill space in an episode.

    You are in good company on that one
     
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  9. DanC

    DanC Delightful person

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    This thread pops up with a new title every three months, and I'll say what I always say: I don't feel passionately enough about Prime to hate it. I watched the whole series and I barely remember it. It doesn't even give me the fun of getting angry at it.

    A few gems of voice acting work in there, though.
     
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  10. Autobot Burnout

    Autobot Burnout ...and I'll whisper "No."

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    It is legitimately the worst Transformers series. I'd have to spend the time to recreate it but the entire plot more or less mirrors that of the only other Transformers series to be called the worst, that being Energon. Right down to the fact they used Unicron too early and a big part of the ending is resurecting him for some reason, Unicron possesses Megatrron, Unicron is compeltely destroyed, and then Megatron flying off into the sky as a resolution - at least with Energon, Megatron was trying to commit suicide so the lingering presence of Unicron couldn't corrupt him again, while with Prime you have Megatron just...flying off.

    Then there's Arcee a.k.a. Ms. Dead Partners. This is, legitimately, the only character depth she actually gets - whining about people dying. Like, yes, dying is awful but it's also a thing that happens during war, which last I checked the Bots and Cons were still fighting. And Arcee is bitchy over specifically two, and she's bitchy over Tailgate only because the writers couldn't tie Airachnid back to killing Cliffjumper. She spends the first half of the series bitching about Starscream and Airachnid, then gets a shitty sudden 'higher road' nonsense decision to not kill the enemy, and this isn't actually because character development - the writers said that they'd originally planned for Airachnid to show up in Predacons Rising as a minion of Unicron, which is the only reason Airachnid didn't die at any point where she damn well should have as a result of being a bland, shitty character whose literal only purpose was to generate angst from Arcee. And then later in the show, Bulkhead almost dies which is treated as worse than Cliffjumper actually dying, which leads to the absolute idiocy of the conclusion of S2 where because Miko pressed a button on a Cybertronian spaceship that launched Cybertronian missiles that killed Hardshell, Megatron becomes convinced humans are somehow obscenely powerful. SHE is in fact the biggest single detriment to the Autobot cause, placing herself before the Autobot cause. Remember the time Starscream went to the Autobots for sanctuary and offered up all the Omega Keys? Who was it that whined hard enough that absolutely under no circumstances would she accept Starscream, who killed one specific guy almost as if they were at fucking war or something, to chill at the Autobot Base? That's right, Arcee. As a result, Starscream simply steals all the keys back and goes right back to Megatron. Because Arcee was too dumb to realize that the war effort was more important than her feelings.

    Which brings me to Megatron. Who is, unquestionably, the worst Megatron ever. Every single decision he makes after a plan is foiled is the wrong one. Every single thing that he is handed on a silver platter is discarded after ONE use. Especially Silas, who walks right up to the Decepticons as a black ops expert willing to sell out his entire species just so he can roleplay as a robot man. And then because Soundwave fucked up because he got outhacked by a fucking child (by means that makes absolutely no goddamn sense because it violates the whole point of why black sites exist if you can just access it off site), Megatron consigns this knowledge base of human culture, civilization, and probably more illegal superweapons, to death for something he wasn't responsible for failing to protect. And then there's the hillarious shitshow with Predaking, where after Predaking demonstrates his amazing ability to read and thus evolve the ability to transform, the dragon-robot simply proposing unquestioning loyalty (Which given the sheer abuse he's suffered, he's willing to ignore all of it) all so he can be a general under Megatron's rule - and what does Megatron, a dude who was shown back in S1 to have defeated monsters far larger than Predaking, do? He does the one thing that ensures Predaking will ultimately betray him, because Megatron was intimidated over nobody telling him Predaking figured out how to transform even though there was literally no way anybody would have known about it.

    And then there's the whole matter about what I call 'Schrodigner's Trypticon' which is regarding the absolute ego of the people behind the team to refuse to play ball with the Aligned concept, the fact literally the only reason anybody hates anybody in Prime is 'dead partners', etc. But I'll stop there for now. I've gone long about this subject many times anyway.
     
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  11. ILoveDinobot

    ILoveDinobot You can, you up. No can, no BB.

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    I didn't love it at first, I did like it, but after I had my kid, it was on netflix so we put it on, I rewatched it a few hundred times, now I love it. The only TF show I hate is Energon.
     
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  12. Soundlips

    Soundlips Defending Reactivate since 2020 loves Tinfoil Hats

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    We do not speak of Energon.

    Ever.

    Or the Machima series.
     
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  13. Matrixbeast

    Matrixbeast Here comes a thought

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    In the episode where Optimus gets the Star Saber, in a blink and you'll miss it moment, he winks to the Decepticons right before unleashing a massive attack at them.
    If Optimus got more moments to express himself like that, I think I'd enjoy him, and the series, a lot more.
     
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  14. optimalsupreme

    optimalsupreme Well-Known Member

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    I love Prime because what's not to love?
    • Great choregraphed epic fights
    • Good soundtrack
    • Credible villains (human and Cybertronian)
    • Characters that actually die and stay dead/undead. So high stakes
    • Top tier voice acting
    • Nods to previous series
    • Respected the lore
    • Good CGI for it's time. Although the lips were very basic.
    • Plus a good story with characters shifting allegiances and changing goals
     
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  15. TheSoundwave

    TheSoundwave Bounty Hunter

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    I don't love it or hate it, I'm honestly somewhere in the middle.

    I like the quality of the animation, a lot of the individual stories, and the cast. The voice acting is top-notch, and the energetic cinematography and action makes the show very entertaining. I honestly think it's one of the most watchable Transformers shows.

    That being said, I think the overall storytelling could have been stronger, and there are a lot of small things that bug me like the weirdly-proportioned faces. The animation is a pro and a con, because the cost of it meant they couldn't get too ambitious with the cast and the environment. It's kind of hard to unsee all the animation cheats, like the super quick transformations and keeping the Shifter obscured in robot mode.

    I think the drama about Prime's storytellers not playing nicely with the High Moon people kind of hurt my enjoyment of the show. As well as all the drama about the third season being a mess. We could have had a really cool Transformers connected universe, and instead the Prime people almost singlehandedly tanked the project and cost Hasbro a lot of time and money. Does that take away from the good stuff in Prime? Not really, but it does make me sad that we could have had something much better.

    Overall I actually feel the same about Prime as I do about a lot of Orci and Kurtzman's work. It has tons of missed potential, but if you strip away that you at least have dumb fun with high entertainment value. Thankfully that's a bit more acceptable in Transformers than something like Star Trek.
     
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  16. fallenspartan

    fallenspartan Banned

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    I separate TFP from the rest of the WFC games to keep my mind sane. There’s so many contradictions between the show and the video games to make a coherent timeline. And don’t even get me started on expanded material that is suppose to connect the media together like Exodus.

    My point, just don’t treat them as a singular timeline. The aligned continuity isn’t very much aligned.
     
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  17. Rodimus 75

    Rodimus 75 This space for rent

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    I’ve been watching a bunch of the different portions of the franchise with my daughter and I put on some of prime. She seemed to really enjoy it, but honestly I’m kind of lukewarm on it. I don’t love it and I definitely don’t hate it. I do like what was done with arcee and bulkhead. Optimus seemed really bland though. The animation was pretty good, story was ok. Prime is kinda middle of the road for me.
     
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  18. Whomps

    Whomps The World's Okayest User

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    Not without its faults. I though Dreadwing and Breakdown deserved a lot better, some of the humans can get pretty annoying, but otherwise I really liked it. Nice story carried by some really good characters, with standouts like Ratchet, Knockout and Soundwave. Not my favorite show(Animated and Cyberverse I think still have it beat) but definitely in the upper echelon. tbh I was always surprised at the visceral hatred this show gets on this site, most other sites were really well receptive of it
     
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  19. Stereotypical Screamer

    Stereotypical Screamer The Original Headmaster

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    Analyzing the series as a plot from one season to another, I agree. Didn’t mind Unicron being used, actually liked the Orion Pax follow on, but bringing Unicorn back for Predacons Rising was lame. It would have been better to end it with Season 3 finale in my opinion.


    Not arguing that Megatron doesn’t commit blunders, but don’t almost all Megatrons do this? Armada Megatron comes to mind, as a version who cackles more than he conquers.

    Megatron nearly killing Ralph with “dark energon aftershock” was probably the best move the Decepticons could make. He was more effective than half the bots in the show, which is preposterous.

    I LOL’d seriously, but not getting the namesake
     
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  20. Stereotypical Screamer

    Stereotypical Screamer The Original Headmaster

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    So much better, death and being bullied by MECH. I liked the Knockout-Breakdown duo that seemed to be a part of the Decepticon team, but not a part of the “clique” (Starscream, Megatron, Soundwave) if that makes sense. Added some dimension.

    Yes. Might talk about their deaths too much (insert previously state dead partner rant) but the show could’ve done something to bring back Cliffjumper since he was kind of brought back with dark energon. They didn’t, which made it meaningful to die.

    I’ll take that over IDW Overlord lips *shudders*
     
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