The December 2022 issue of SFX magazine features a couple of pages on Transformers EarthSpark with some new information.

Some highlights:
- "We have a very big story planned." Malinowski grins "We're very excited. Huge adventure, wild action, lots of humour and heart, and it's not a short story..."
- The two lifelong fans say they were inspired by adventures like ET, The Iron Giant and The Goonies.
- "We took a look at Megatron and had many meetings about how to treat this character in this chapter of their lives," Malinowski says. "We returned to his core as an idealist and having a very specific mission and goal in mind for not just himself, not just his faction, but for all Cybertronian-kind. Sometimes leaders have to make very difficult choices in the heat of battle, for example, and it felt very true to Megatron that he would not be afraid to reconsider his goals and his values and what the best strategy would be, moving forward, to achieve that goal. And not just stick to one side or the other because that's where he started"
- "We are doing our own unique one that definitely takes elements that we really, really liked from lots of the previous iterations," Ward says. "So our reason for the Cybertronians coming to Earth is canonically different to the original G1."

 

No Red Alert?

 

So great to hear lots of love was put into the show.

 

Shame none of that love was transferred to giving Optimus or bumblebee an interesting design

 

Bee I can tolerate, Optimus’s face is… not good.

 

Everything sounds great. They clearly understand the appeal of Transformers and have an idea they're passionate about that, while referencing the past, seems like it is new instead of merely regurgitated nostalgia. Hope the execution will do it justice.

 

Honestly I think this design would look cool as it’s own thing, but I hate it for Bumblebee. I’m 100% a VW Bumblebee kind of person, so I’ve gotten tired of the fact that this type of design has been pushed so hard since the movies.

 

Thanks for the writers for making it clear then that the G1 flashbacks look that way just for nostalgia, and this is not canonically a G1 continuation (really could not be, or Megatron would be Galvatron).
I do like the idea that the TFs are well known and some are even celebrities. Cyberverse played with the idea but that show never showed any humans so it was just with the livestream bits.

 

I wonder if Cybertron becomes popular with tourists.

 

So am I wrong in thinking that I remember it being mentioned that the show was going to be available on Pluto?

 

"In this they have their own merchandise"

That's a fun meta detail.

 

Dear lord, stop, borrowing heavily from Iron Giant!  

I get the similarity... but I'm really not a fan of Iron Giant! Remember G1? Remember how it wasn't about a boy's precocious adventures with a giant bot?

Anyway, Jar Jar Binks. Let's see if kids like Jar Jar as much as Lucas claimed.  

 

Regurgitated nostalgia sounds gross. You know what's worse? Regurgitating "hip lingo" & "cool things kids like!"   Don't be fooled that "new" is better because it's different.

New Coke.

 

I know I'm not the only one who thinks it's funny how the new characters' designs have that distinct "NICK ROCHE" look about them while the legacy characters have that mix of everything we've seen before.

 

Transformers in animation has been on a downward slide in quality, storytelling, animation quality/character designs, etc., since Prime ended. Seemingly it will never again reach the heights of either Animated or Prime, sadly. So, we fans take what we're given and smile meekly. If this show is great I will gladly eat crow and exclaim its virtues when the time comes. However as is I'm not entirely sure I buy that this show is going to be anything other than meh/average/ho-hum/forgettable.

With some characters literally ported over from the most recent animation iteration, the name of which escapes me. For instance, their Shockwave design at least in toy form is literally a reuse of the most recent animation toy version. Not sure how I feel about that.

 

Even if today's kids actually gave a shit about Beetles, Volkwagen has ensured that Hasbro will never again use that alt mode outside of the movies or the occasional (read: once every few years, if we're lucky) collectors oriented toy. It's a licensing nightmare, and Hasbro I'm sure wants full freedom to sell Bumblebee merch to kids in whatever form they please.

 

"New doesn't mean it'll be good good" is the entire point of me hoping the execution ends up well done. What a weird post you decided to make.
Regardless, no, you're wrong when you claim that a show for kids trying to appeal to the current kids is as bad as regurgitated deathly repetitive nostalgia wank. When it comes to Transformers, Nostalgia Regurgitation means 100% certainty of being crap since everytime they attempt it they are met by the obstacle that the G1 cartoon was frankly shoddy media and hazy memories of folks approaching their 50 or so years is all it has going for it, so it always ends up try-hard attempts at matching a visuion of the old cartoon that never truly existed.

 

Yeah, feels I like I could have seen Twitch in a crowd scene in some Roche-drawn comic.

 

We fans? Yeah no, honestly I think some of the more recent Animation is probably the best stuff we've gotten since Animated, especially Cyberverse and Rescue Bots. There is clunkers like the Prime Wars and WFC Trilogies.

Like I understand people like Prime but honestly I don't see the appeal or how it's the bar of quality every TF show should follow.

It's probably one of the more weaker shows we've gotten in the past 15 years imo. It's fine, I loved it when I was younger but on rewatch recently it's just not quite there, it has good elements but overall it's alright.

However I feel Earthspark is shaping up to be something unique, fun and some good action from what we've seen. The people making it have made good stuff and sound really passionate about it.

 

Looks fun with multiple generational appeal, and it’s not solely focused on the war aspects of Transformers but instead on sharing a planet with cool robots. And Rescue Bots has the best and most diverse storylines in the history of TF.