Never know what you're gonna when it comes to Cybertron. An arc going on way longer than it should (Speed Planet) or a presumably final climatic battle against an Evil God being being 2-ish minutes. That said, still loved seeing all the leaders come together as kid since they were all me and my siblings favorites.

Even though this was not intended as a third installment in a trilogy in Japan (initially), do like how you can look it at UT Megatron ultimately almost became a new Unicron at the end with his talk of wiping out the universe and disregard for even his own underlings.

 

And now the theme's in my head.   No joke, that thing's one hell of an ear worm.

And the Decepticons, too! Well, the ones coded as Decepticons in the toyline.

By Grbthar's Hammer, by the Suns of Worvan!

Well, in this case Deus Ex machina actually makes quite a bit of sense.  

And as Galvatron points out, he's drained of energy after holding off the black hole. So kudos for explaining why Galvatron takes him out.

It was a pretty funny sequence overall, yeah.   And again, a pair of Decepticons fighting to SAVE THE UNIVERSE!!!!

Lugnutz doesn't appear often, but I think he made the most of when we saw him. I'd love to see him get a new toy, as his old one is... not that great, as I posted earlier.

Override should've been in Armada!

Seriously, writers. Could you please name the attacks something more closely to what they are? This has been an ongoing thing since Armada!

This is something they've got to do themselves!

And Scourge just pisses away any character development he's had these past few episodes...

For once... yeah. better to help out here and contribute rather than wait outside and possibly perish.

So he's Thanos from Avengers: Endgame?

So, just to remind you folks? All the way back during the series finale of Armada, Galvatron sacrificed himself to stop Unicron from regenerating and specifically told Optimus to 'take care of his Decepticons', or something along those lines. Now they're nothing to him. How far he's fallen...

Could we have a Queen one, too? Ooh, and the Bangles?

Yup. Again, for once the kids helping out makes a kind of semi-good sense.

Didn't we go through this character arc a few episodes ago?

"Hey quit hogging the road, Vector Prime! There's a ton of room on your right!"

He did. Right after speaking he glowed and turned back into Cybertron.

I've seen both, and I prefer the Cybertron version.

With pretty much NO build-up whatsoever!

He's off to repaint himself and rename himself Megatron for the next series.  

Thank you, reverse-Simon Furman!

 

Galaxy Force makes more sense because, well, Cybertron was reformatted with the power of Cyber Planet Keys. These trees were created because of Earth's Cyber Planet Key:

 

Yup I’m fine with changing things to appeal to a different audience in a different language (that’s what a localization should be) but my problem with this part was more that they did it in a way that seemed to lack internal consistency. When you go back to the “Scourge” episode of Cybertron (and we’re only looking at the English version here, not the Japanese one) the various developments and breakthroughs and insights into Scourge’s motives as were presented back then didn’t really serve to explain why he was suddenly trying to throw his life away in the current episode.

This is a big point of contrast with Micron Legend. In that show, deep within Megatron there was a part of him that actually cared about his men, and that appeared to be the main reason Starscream’s death made him so angry at Unicron that he agreed to join forces with his eternal rival Optimus Prime. This side of Megatron was shown in various ways throughout Micron Legend, only occasionally but just enough for the viewer to catch on to it. In a late episode the warlord even flat out said his men are important to him, in a way that makes you wonder if he means it but then you remember the hints that were sprinkled throughout the series and realize he actually does. Unfortunately the English dub of Armada pretty much stripped all these layers away from Megatron and made him a simple — or simplistic, rather — villain who isn’t much different from his Cybertron counterpart in how he views his troops.

The “uh oh” was hilarious. I loved it.

Ahahahahaha

These conversations between Optimus and Coby were rewritten by the English writers to make Coby look cooler and braver and more inspiring and more amazing, but that should be no surprise by now. (The part that surprises me, the part I find almost astounding, is the dogged consistency with which they did this. Like, it was REALLY IMPORTANT to them, apparently.) In Galaxy Force, Optimus is the one who has to encourage Coby when the boy expresses a lack of confidence about having to be Optimus’s “eyes.”

I wonder why they did this, the reason isn’t clear to me. I don’t have a preference between the two, maybe because I’m not sure what they were getting at.

I mean, the episode even calls itself “End” — but apparently that was a head fake!

 

It seems that like HispasatBot mentions above, Cybertron (the show) cuts out the fact that Cybertron (the planet) is essentially reborn/reformatted using the power of all 4 Cyber Planet Keys and that as a result elements of those planets make their way into the regenerated form. It would appear that the contribution from Earth is biological greenery. Instead Cybertron is content to simply put Cybertron back to how it was before all this happened and that would've begged the question of why a mechanical planet has organic flora.

 

​

EPISODE 50: UNFINISHED (ギャラクシーコンボイVSマスターガルバトロン 最終決戦! - Galaxy Convoy vs Master Galvatron - The Final Battle!)
It's the end... again!

Spoiler

Galaxy Force - Subs by TV-Nihon

Cybertron - Split-episodes playlist (each episode is 2 parts. Part 1 is posted here and part 2 should play after it)

Cybertron - Tubi release
Transformers Cybertron S02:E24 - Unfinished

It's the end... again! After doing the whole fight and seeming climax last episode we do it all over again as Galvatron comes back for one last gasp and a final final faceoff vs Optimus.

This time around at least the fight itself is much better. The crisp animation makes this one feel a lot more interesting that last episode's somewhat underwhelming outing. And it's helped by the fact that Galvatron is in it for nothing less than the destruction and remaking of the universe in his own image, making sure that the fight has the kind of stakes necessary for a final battle.

But even with those improvements it's still kind of a let down in the end as instead of being a dynamic, fully interesting brawl it's more shonen anime staples like the crossing blows, swatting away attacks on pure badassery, burning justice, and all that jazz (except there's no Jazz).

It's also one last annoying spotlight for Bud, the most annoying of humans.

It would've been better to merge the events of this episode and the previous one into one more coherent story without the repetition. Had it done so it might've been a great ending to a solid show. As it stands it's merely a decent one to a show that's had too many "could've done better if you'd tried" moments holding it back.

Spoiler

-We open up on Cybertron (with its still-present visual alterations from Galaxy Force) as Bud and Coby play and goof off while Lori notices that Optimus seems preoccupied, staring off into the sky.

-And up above Cybertron, on a floating asteroid around the planet, Galvatron stands. He fumes over how his attempt at conquest/universal destruction ends with such a pathetic whimper.

-Then he's taunted by the ghost of christmas past... I mean Starscream, who "appears" as a bright blue ball of light that pulses until it envelops Galvatron and takes him to a burning, ruined wasteland where he lectures Galvatron for giving up after fending off Starscream's attempted coup.

Galvatron! You mustn't be so hard on Bob Cratchit... I mean Thundercracker!​

And then at that moment Starscream's crown floats into view and into Galvatron's hands.

Why is any of this happening? Is Starscream dead? Is this a message from the other dimension that Vector Prime indicated Starscream and the two Planet X natives ended up in after the last fight? Why is the crown here above Cybertron and not in the other dimension that Gigantion occupies? And why is it suddenly scaled to be about the size necessary to fit on Starscream's head if he were his normal, pre-Omega-Lock-juicing size and not the massive pumped up size he was when he donned the crown.

Those are all excellent questions that I'm sure we'll get around to answering eventually. Right?

-Galvatron crushes the crown right along with the sense of mass of the CG models, as it simply crumples in a set of jagged polygons with all the weight and presence of a piece of tissue paper. Actually, that's incorrect. A piece of tissue paper would have looked more dramatic and significant being crushed than this crown did. With this he vows to complete his plans no matter the obstacle.

Turns out it was made of wet noodles​

-Down on Cybertron Jetfire notes that they have one big hurdle left to overcome: Jungle Planet was pulled out of its orbit by the black hole and needs to be put back in place.

-Most of the bots and humans have no idea what they're going to do to solve the problem until Scattorshot pipes up and suggests they take the engines from the Ark and rebuild them on Jungle Planet to move the entire world. That's right, they're building a "World Engine." Where have I heard that term before...?

I know it's in a show I've watched. A CG one too. I feel like it's probably something I've talked about a lot in the past. And somehow while watching the Unicron trilogy it seems, or rather sounds, oddly familiar. Like it exists in the Shadow of my mind, stealing my focus and attention as if the rogue thoughts were a collection of Raiders...

bah, I give up. I'm sure some of you know what I'm getting at. And if you don't I'm going to keep harassing you until you at least give it a try because if you like dramatic sci-fi like The Transformers then it should be right up your alley as well.

Behold the coming of the beast!​

-Anyway we cut to the engine construction and somehow Coby has positioned himself to be in charge, bossing Scourge around. Sucks to be Scattorshot. You know, the bot who actually came up with the idea.

-Bud hauls one crate and decides his work is done. Because of course he does.

-Meanwhile Lori appears to be coordinating and giving orders from Jolt. But it's less annoying than the other two.

-Scourge thanks Optimus for saving his planet and Optimus rebukes him for being too hard on himself.

-Lori is happy that Scourge has grown, which he happily praises Lori for initiating. Bud complains about this being too sappy for his tastes, which is maybe mildly better than him complaining about not getting credit.

-And so the engines engage and push Jungle Planet through space and back towards its original home. We're not going to address the fact that it was summoned here through a portal and that a real trip to another star system would take hundreds of years at non-portal, non-lightspeed travel.

Ok, after playing oblique a couple minutes ago I went to find something related to world engines from Shadow Raiders but instead found a different youtube channel where someone attempted to upscale the show to 1080p. It's a bit rough, suffering from the same issues that a lot of 90s cg ai-driven upscales do, muddying tight or highly detailed textures and over-sharpening intentionally blurry things like shadows. But it still looks pretty good all things considered and if nothing else I'd almost consider it to be a Christmas gift to me if you'd give it a go if you haven't (or if you tried years ago when it was first on and never stuck with it)  

Come on, it's got Scott McNeil playing a nameless redshirt pilot who is the series' first casualty. What more could you want?

We even have time now that this show is wrapping up and it's going to be a couple weeks before we dig into animated. It's 26 episodes at like 22 minutes apiece. That's not even 9 hours of total end-to-end runtime.

-Galvatron watches Jungle Planet move and declares it "another victory for the Autobots" with sinister undertones and an evil laugh. But mostly just check out the cool shot of him half cloaked in shadows.

It would've ben beter if the whole show was this dramatic​

-He laughs as he slams into the engines, damaging one and attempting to prevent the aforementioned "victory."

It's bad enough that Scattorshot foresees two outcomes: the engine explodes, taking the planet with it, or the altered trajectory causes the planet to slam into Cybertron, taking two planets out in the process.

-Galvatron then emerges from his fiery pocket dimension in Autobot HQ. And Optimus says the thing. He actually says it.

RKStriker, do the thing!

-He also says that he and Galvatron are two sides of the same coin and to trust him. Everyone agrees except Hot Shot, who wants to horn in on the action because of course he does. he needs to save the day.

-So with that the rest of the Autobots head out to try and fix the engine while Optimus and Galvatron have their fated final showdown. You know, the type of fight where one shall stand and one shall fall.

-Somewhat interestingly Optimus only goes for Super mode because this fight is him alone and not with Leobreaker or Wing Saber. That's questionable considering it took Sonic Wing Optimus to fight Galvatron to a standstill before.

-While some of the bots complain that they can't focus on the task at hand while Optimus is fighting his final battle, at least Override keeps her head on straight and says that his fight won't matter if they don't fix the engine.

-Once again the nighttime battle and other visual quirks have washed out a lot of the color and made everything kind of bland. That's a disappointment.

-Optimus stands on the moral high ground, lecturing about the power of good and how his friends will avenge him if he falls. It's cliche, but it works.

-Galvatron isn't convinced though and half-transforms to unleash what he calls his ultimate weapon. It doesn't have a name in Cybertron but in Galaxy Force he calls it the "Death Cannon" to continue the trend of all his attacks having "death" in the name. It also continues the trend of production-staff-made-alt-modes as this cannon is the result of animators fiddling with the Cybertron/GF Galvatron toy and figuring out what they could make from it just as their predecessors did with Sixshot's Wingwolf or Scorponok/Black Zarak's Hydra mode.

Yeah, you could make your toy do this. But why would you want to?​

It's massively disappointing in terms of how intimidating it's supposed to be vs how intimidating it actually looks. Which is pretty much on par with Wingwolf and Hydra modes.

-Optimus takes the hit, shouts, and Bud looks back ominously as the map orb thingy Vector Prime gave him rolls out of his pocket, in another anime trope: the "breaking/shattered keepsake foreshadowing the death of the character it's linked to." You know, like a framed photo mysteriously having its glass shatter out of nowhere or how Alexis' necklace broke in Armada when Starscream died.

except this doesn't break because a) Optimus is almost certainly not dead and b)making a CG model break cleanly is difficult. Look how much trouble they had with the crown!

-While this is going on the gang is having trouble containing the fire around the engines and realigning them, so Scourge just decides to brute force it and attempts to shove the engines with his own two hands. Because when all you have is a hammer...

-Still, everyone's moved by his determination and starts helping.

-Oh look, Optimus isn't dead. What a shock. Galvatron is frustrated though because he thinks Optimus' speech about the Autobots picking up the torch from him means that Op doesn't care of he dies.

-So he taunts Optimus and fires his Death Cannon again, but in true anime form Optimus just slaps the blast aside like so many DBZ attacks. It doesn't make a lick of sense in a sci-fi robot anime, but it's shonen as heck so we have to play along apparently!

-Cue burning justice from Optimus as he crashes into Megatron and hauls him up onto Cybertron's only-occasionally-present moon.

-Meanwhile the other Decepticons land on Jungle Planet to try and hassle the autobots as they attempt to fix the damaged engines.

-The gang still insists that they're going to fix the engines by shoving the engines while the kids all watch and Lori Prays. That's what we're down to. I was hoping for some sort of clever solution.

-But now the Decepticons show up at the rocket and just when it looks like they're going to take the Autobots out they instead pitch in. Turns out they're sick of Galvatron stomping all over them and want to be on the winning team for once.

-Also all the other tertiary characters and nameless randos show up. As do the Minicons. And now the kids are pushing too.

-"til all are one" is repeated a bunch of times and then from nowhere the 4 GF Convoys (I honestly don't know what else to call them from a Cybertron perspective. I'm talking about Evac, Override, Metroplex, and Scourge since they all have "____ Convoy" names in Galaxy Force) start glowing and a massive golden energy field rises up. Coby says "it's the spark of Primus in each of us" as if everyone is glowing but honestly we don't get to see anyone else doing it.

-This basically covers the whole planet too. Sure. In for a penny, in for a pound on the shonen craziness!

Jungle Planet goes super saiyan​

-Ok. It's also answered my question about how the planet was going to get home in short order: it heads through a space bridge.

-Everyone bids farewell to the Beast Planet as if they're never going to see them again. Guys, they're just headed home, to a location in space that you've been before. It's not like it was with Gigantion where they're in another dimension.

-That leaves us with one last thing to take care of: Optimus vs Galvatron. Part of me worries that with about 5 minutes left in the episode and a strong suspicion that the final episode is sort of an epilogue one that these 5 minutes are going to be all we get after the groundwork and prep earlier in the episode. If this was a totally continuous battle from earlier in the episode that'd be one thing, but the fact that Optimus' previous charge led them to the moon and now things are staged in a way that is evocative of it being like the start of the final round kind of sucks some of the impact of the earlier portions out of it.

And so we meet for the first time for the last time. Again.​

-At least the fight is nicely animated.

-The rest of the Autobots land behind Optimus to support him. Galvatron laughs and mocks Op for "hiding behind his friends." even though Optimus is very clearly in front of them.

-Galvatron decides to press this weakness by attacking the other autobots, taking them out with some kind of electricity field attack. But all that does is piss Optimus off and trigger a bout of burning justice!

-That's fine though. Because Megatron has added tricks up his sleeves. like a weird energy sword. Because sure, why not?

He was saving it until he'd been roundly defeated several times​

-Optimus gets one of his wings severed and collapses because of it. Even though the wing isn't actually part of his body.

-We get reactions from the kids, by which I mean we mostly get reaction from Bud while we sort of see Lori off to the side/in the background. Because Bud is the most important one, right?

-Oh no. Oh no no no. I don't like where this is going. Bud's sudden fear and sadness (where was this emotional reaction when Vector Prime was dying?) causes a weird ball of light to emerge from his chest and fly out into the battle, literally blocking Galvatron's finishing blow with his sword.

You just knew Bud was going to save the day eventually. You knew and you were afraid.​

-This then flashes into a hallucination of Vector Prime saying he'll always watch Optimus and now has 'a gift"

-Upon closer inspection the ball of light is not some random "spirit of humanity" type nonsense like I was afraid of. It's actually the little map sphere thing that Vector Prime gave Bud before he died. That's better.

-Anyways, the gift Optimus got is... a massive sword!

I see your schwartz is as big as mine! Now let's see how well you handle it!​

It's not Vector Prime's original sword, it's just a huge, sharp, pointy piece of space metal.

-Or is it Vector Prime's sword? It has some of the detailing on it even if the shape doesn't seem the same.

-Ok, maybe it is VP's sword.

-Galvatron is shocked and Optimus can now both stand up to him and lecture him. And so both of them charge up with burning justice or whatever and roar towards one another so things can end in the most cliched way possible: the standard anime "crossing single strikes" attack whereby Galvatron is impaled by Optimus. There's also a lot of screaming.

All that's missing is that kabuki theatre "yoooooooo" sound. And maybe some bamboo "doink" noises​

-And with that there's a huge explosion and everyone is worried that Optimus is dead too.

-He's not. His faceplate shattered, but he's still there.

-And Galvatron's still alive too, saying Optimus won't lose until his spark is extinguished. Which it is. Because he fades away right after that.

-Jetfire charges in and Optimus says "don't worry. You won't get rid of me that easy" and then the episode just ends. The line delivery really felt like there was supposed to be more afterwards.

Pros
+The biggest stakes

+Big final showdown between Optimus and Galvatron with some nice animation

+the Decepticons deciding to help out is kinda cool.



Cons
-The last fight is kind of a let down

-There's so much shonen nonsense going on

-saving Jungle Planet comes down to a silly bit of everyone pushing really hard.

-These fights and events could've had more time given that there's still 1 more episode left.

-Bud gets way too much focus as the 'heart' of everything.

 

EPISODE 00: <ENGLISH TITLE> (<KANJI> - <TRANSLATION>)
Fight's over. So all that's left is 22 minutes of "where are they now?"

Spoiler

Galaxy Force - Subs by TV-Nihon

Cybertron - Split-episodes playlist (each episode is 2 parts. Part 1 is posted here and part 2 should play after it)

Cybertron - Tubi release
Transformers Cybertron S02:E25 - Beginning

I've spent a lot of time in the anime series bemoaning the lack of a real sense of denouement/closing arc in the shows. Many of them have been content to do the big showdown, have the villain defeated, and then immediately go "that's it! We're done! Drop the curtain!"

So it's a nice change of pace this time that we get a whole epilogue episode that wraps things up and looks ahead, giving us time to have a proper goodbye with these characters we've spent the last 50 episodes with.

And some of those goodbyes are actually emotional. Unlike the other "now we must go!" departures at the ends of various series, this one feels like friends parting and being upset by it, which transfers a bit to the audience.

I even kind of like the framing device of the documentary footage, though it takes a hit because it's Bud's doing.

Unfortunately while I appreciate the "where are they now?" bits, some of them are a little rushed and don't feel organic given how little build or foreshadowing they got. It's hard to invest in, say, the idea that Dr. Suzuki and Col. Franklin are an item when they barely ever talk to each other on screen and the first sense we have of them even having a romantic relationship is a marriage proposal.

In the end this was a nice way to cap things off even with the uneven and slightly frustrating suddenness of the wrap-up and it makes me happy and sad to see Cybertron come to a close.

Spoiler

-It's kind of funny that in an episode that's entirely about the post-script after the final battle, we still have the "OUR WORLDS ARE IN DANGER!" line spoken during the title sequence.

-Speaking of it's time for me to do my traditional bit of watching the title sequence again for the final episode to see if my views on it have changed since the beginning of the show.

So... it's still kinda OK. The over the top rap-ish voiced lines are straddling that line between campy fun and over-wrought silliness. I like the music portion and the fact that it splits between being a "traditional" electric guitar rock style song like has been normal for the franchise and something a bit more techno/dance inspired.

It's... fine. It's not terrible. It's not great. It's a nice update of the iconic G1 theme in a sort of unassuming, inoffensive way and it's fine.

-Anyway, on with the episode.

-We rewind a bit and watch the final decisive blows over again as Optimus defeats Galvatron once and for all. Seriously, it's a whole minute of watching exactly the same scene that ended last episode.

-The only thing I noticed this time that may be different or may be simple a case of me not catching it the first time around, is that it looks like Megatron mouths something to Optimus as he fades away but we don't hear it. I don't know if it's supposed to be a plot point that we don't hear his final words or if this is a dubbing mistake where they (intentionally or accidentally) simply didn't give David Kaye lines to record here.

-And then we cut to what appears to be a peace conference where the 4 GF Primes arrive as representatives of their respective planets, except for Evac who is seemingly just a ferry for the Earth's actual representative, Col. Franklin.

-He got the gig from the President herself, and as we see that press conference there's a random aide woman standing off to one side. The wiki assumes this is Alexis based on the fact that it is seemingly a replication of her Energon character model with its very official-looking blazer/skirt business suit. Whether it actually is or not is never confirmed, though it would be one of a vanishingly few references to the previous UT series to appear in this show in both iterations (this scene is in Galaxy Force as well and was not altered for Cybertron.)

It'd be nice to believe it is her. But this is also the series that can't make up its mind about how much the previous two series even exist​

-Optimus is narrating as he says "they are greeted by none other than Optimus Prime!".

Don't narrate about yourself in the 3rd person, Optimus. Liege Nemesis thinks it makes you sound pretentious.

-Jolt has a microphone and is reporting on the conference with Bud as his camera man. I can't count the number of ways they could get themselves into trouble from this starting point.

-While most of the bots are watching the conference in a stadium as if it was a sporting event, Wing Saber's had enough of this silly junk and is taking off to explore the cosmos.

-The first point of discussion is what to do with the Cyber Planet Keys and Omega Lock. Col. Franklin wants to secure them and keep them locked up. It's impled he means all locked up in one place, which feels like a huge risk to take. Why not give each key back to its own planet for them to secure? Scattering them is much safer than making it a one-stop-shopping chore for someone looking to steal them.

-But Optimus doesn't want to do that. he wants to build a new space bridge. How or why does this require the Cyber Planet Keys? Don't ask those questions! There's no time left anymore!

-Scattorshot actually does say they're going to use the power of the keys to help build the added bridges to reach out into the cosmos. That actually sorta makes sense.

-Optimus says he'll take charge of the 4 ships and lead a crew out into space to construct the bridge, leaving another autobot in charge of Cybertron.

-That Autobot is.... Hot Shot!


Nah, just kidding. I would've quit watching here if it really was. No, it's Jetfire. Which doesn't make a ton of sense given how much Jetfire has been ignored and passed over at various points in favor of other bots. But good for him.

-Col. Franklin seconds the proposal in spite of the fact that he's not connected with any of this since it's kind of a Cybertronian thing.

-Quick cut to after the conference where Optimus pep talks Jetfire about how he's ready to handle the job.

And Hot Shot's sure too. Everyone else too but mostly Hot shot.

-Quick cut to Jetfire speaking to the camera with a small inset shot of what we were just watching.

is this like Cybertron: The Office now?

"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
-Wayne Gretzky"
-Jetfire​

-There's also an interview with Leobreaker where he reveals that they picked a new leader for Beast Planet through the time-honored tradition of professional wrestling.

Just in time for Survivor Series!​

-After Scourge dispatches Snarl, Leobreaker steps up, the two cut promos on each other and it reveals that Jolt is commentating, Coby and Lori are in the crowd, and Thunderblast is there too for some reason, saying the winner gets to take her out for energon.

-It is fun that Lori is cheering for Scourge while Coby is cheering for Leobreaker.

-There's a weird graphic effect going on when Leobreaker throws a big punch to follow up on his top-rope powerbomb type move (which seems like it should probably be a finisher all on its own). I'm not sure what's going on here but they've added a bunch of blurry speed lines and increased the line thickness around much of Leobreaker's details.

I'm not sure if this is what they were going for or if someone screwed up and everyone just tried to play it cool​

-Scourge counters with a big uppercut that knocks something off Leobreaker and also knocks him out. And with that Scourge is the leader of Beast Planet. So.... nothing changed!

-Then Scourge does an interview about why he's not helping with the space bridge and how he's a better leader now. It's kind of weird and comedic.

-Meanwhile on Velocitron we now have Hot Shot in his new body racing (and beating) Dirt Boss to win another iteration of the Speedia 500. Override declares him the leader of the planet as a result too. But wasn't he leader because of his win last time? And how is he still winning in his bulky armored APC alt-mode instead of being a sports car like before?

-Override also isn't taking the leadership reins because she's not going to be around. I guess she's helping to build the space bridge or something.

-meanwhile on Earth it's revealed that some of the ex-Decepticons are helping to build now, including Thundercracker who's wearing a Japanese construction worker's headband and has a shoddy Autobot symbol slapped on his chest. But his interview is cut short when Mudflap declares his break over.

He just wanted to be on the winning team. No, really. That's his reason​

-While this is going on Evac and Crosswise talk about their futures when Lugnutz shows up and they discuss their futures. And seemingly they all decide to just forget responsibility and cruise around!

-So it turns out all these interview segments and narration are because Bud is making a documentary about everything that's happened. And he smugly thinks he's going to become rich and famous from this because he's learned nothing through the entire journey and he's still a twerp.

-Outside Safeguard is staring at a launch bay in the Autobot base, mourning his lost partner.

-Cut to the night where Coby is watching the skies and is upset about how he can't go with them. Lori says she wants to go on the journey with him, making their gradually building romance move past the subtext stage (while still avoiding them outright confessing their feelings to one another.)

Filth. Hopefully nobody faints from the shock of being exposed to this debauchery.​

-At the same time Tim is in a car with some guy (apparently "Chief Dobson". Question is which Dobson brother is this a shout-out to?) lamenting that his brothers saved the universe and he's got chores to do. as they pull away it's revealed that the traffic stop is actually Signal Lancer and Phreaker.

Possibly the real heroes of this show after Override​

Signal Lancer says "destiny is calling and I must answer" and then he transforms!

I want one. I want one really, really badly.​

-And with that he runs off to adventure, leaving Phreaker by himself and Chief Dobson to return the next day to find no traffic light.

-Then we cut to the 4 colony ships loading as everyone preps to depart on the space bridge construction project.

-the kids are there to see everyone off, and Coby brought a farewell gift for Override, who's happy to receive it. Aww.

I honestly might miss her the most​

-The Hansens and Jimenezeses watch the ships loading and talk about how amazing their kids' robot friends are. Tim says they must be amazing if it helped Coby get a girlfriend and Lori's dad loses it, forbidding her from dating "til after I'm gone."

-Lori takes it well.

One last time for good measure.​

-Looks like Evac is headed out but Crosswise is staying behind on Earth.

-Jolt and his team say their goodbyes to Safeguard and the Gigantion Minicons and the kids start crying as Landmine departs and the CDT go their separate ways as well.

-Some human astronauts we've never seen before are along for the ride too, as is Dr. Suzuki.

Does anyone else hear Aerosmith playing in the background?​

-She says her goodbyes to Col. Franklin and "reads his mind" to predict that he's thinking about proposing to her while also answering "yes" to the question he's apparently posing but hasn't.

Wow, that just came out of nowhere. They've barely known each other for a few weeks-to-months and we've never seen them hold a real conversation that wasn't work-related. That was weird.

-Optimus cedes command to Jetfire, who says that Optimus is the only commander the Autobots will ever have.

-And then Wing Saber cuts in on a transmission to suggest that he's found signs of Starscream, prompting Landmine and Mudflap to ask to head out and track him down instead of working on the space bridge. Optimus is unconvinced, believing that Starscream was dead.

This is in spite of the fact that Vector Prime clearly said he was sucked into another dimension and not killed.

-Back outside Bud gives Optimus the map sphere, making him promise to say hello to VP and I guess return the map to him.

and then everyone starts crying again.

-And all the parents are crying too now... weird.

-There's fireworks and Thundercracker doing a fly-by before he's distracted by what looks like a flying submarine with a Decepticon log on it, piloted by Ransack, Crumplezone, and Thunderblast. they've declared themselves the "new Decepticons"

I'd ask "why does it look like a submarine?" but then I remember who built it.​

Then they kidnap Thundercracker even though he likes being an Autobot.

-this leads to a sort of painted shot of the 4 of them in the sky shouting "the new Decepticons!", except Thundercracker who hates all of this.

This is the sort of thing you usually save to cap off the episode​

-And then the theme song plays as Optimus orders the ships launched and we watch them rise up into sky and away from Earth.

Slowly. With lots of un-moving reaction shots. Very slowly.

-The reaction shots aren't all un0moving and include a pair of scenes that were animated just for Cybertron and don't appear in Galaxy Force. The first is a hilariously bad shot of grown up versions of (allegedly) the Armada kids where the only one who looks even remotely convincing as the same character is Alexis. Rad's suit is ridiculous and Carlos now has long brown hair and his skin is significantly lighter for some inexplicable reason.

Honestly, this is just insulting.​

-Then there's a shot of Kicker (UGH!) now older but also with a dangerously mullet-like hairdo and looking as disagreeable as ever. Also Hot Shot's Energon body is shown in the background even though by all rights it should've been Ironhide since he was the bot most likely to be marked as Kicker's partner.

And this is just terrifying​

-One last shot of this series' kids as they watch their friends head for the stars

I'm going to miss one and a half of these people​

-The ships depart and Optimus notices that the map sphere in his hand is glowing. At that moment a ghostly apparition of Vector Prime appears in the stars and smiles at his comrades.

The Force will be with you. Always.​

-And with that Optimus narrates about the power of friendship as things close out with "til all are one."

Fin.
Except not because this is Cybertron, the show that loves to do psych-out non-endings.​

then as the credits role the usual scenes that accompany it are instead replaced by a set of "where are they now?" style scenes of various adventures and happenings. I'm going to switch to Galaxy Force for screenshots of these since the Cybertron ones are cropped and filtered a bit to fit with the credits aesthetic.

-...or not? The TV-Nihon version of the episode that I have doesn't have these scenes, instead showing a static shot of the CDT saluting the camera while the logo sits in the upper left-hand corner and says "the end of our journey."

ok, so back to the Cybertron credits.

-The shots include lots of adventure, the crew building stuff, Starscream actually being found by Wing Saber, Coby being an astronaut along with Lori, Galvatron and Vector Prime fighting in the afterlife, Bud on a screen (TFWiki says it's him winning an Oscar but you can't actually see what's on screen as Coby and Lori's hands are in the way) and the final shot is Coby and Lori's wedding with Optimus and hte Minicon team joining the wedding party along with their respective families (including Tim seemingly having married his barely-seen girlfriend and having a daughter, while Col Franklin and Dr. Suzuki are also apparently married now with a baby.

So we had two episodes that were basically the same fight repeated and we couldn't have maybe had a whole-episode epilogue about this future and everyone reuniting?​

-As a small side note, TV-Nihon's release also included 2 "special secret DVD" files that were 12-17 minutes long and a 30 second tv promo announcing the series.

the special DVDs had character bios, the basics of the plot, looks at all the toys, and for whatever reason also the first episode (and only the first episode) of the RobotMasters shorts. Nothing worth examining (again, in the case of RobotMasters)

Pros
+I normally complain about the lack of real wrap-up/resolution in the various series, so a whole episode was kind of nice

+the goodbyes were actually emotional

+the looks ahead at the characters' lives was fun.

+The "new Decepticons" get one last bit of fun comedy.



Cons
-Some of the character future developments are a little rushed/random, like Franklin and Suzuki being a thing.

-Bud being at the center of the documentary framing device is kind of annoying

-some of the subplots before the "where are they now epilogue" are underbaked and awkwardly addressed

-A few comments and lines seem to contradict what the series had already established.

 

And that's that. Cybertron done.

If anyone's late joining and wondering "wasn't there a 52nd episode?" yes. But because it was actually just the second episode of Galaxy Force dubbed in full and not crammed together with the premiere I reviewed it back when we started the series.

As usual the rest of this week is going to be wrap-up content drip-fed over the next little bit.

From there maybe It'll take a couple of weeks to do some other review/recap stuff or fun distractions so I can have some time to get a few non-Transformers chores and tasks done before we head off into our next series: Animated.

 

I was disappointed with this scene in the English dub. In Galaxy Force, Starscream encourages Galvatron like a man. NOT mocking him like a kid:

Galaxy Force: Now that's the Master Galvatron I know. (それでこそマスターガルバトロン)
Cybertron: Well, whatever you have to tell yourself.

 

"Guardshell and Demolishor face Starscream in Fire Space. Guardshell hopes for negotiations, but..."


"Master Galvatron resurrected in the void of time and space. To stop his evil ambition, Vector Prime also returns to life, and now the new battle has begun."


"There are many parallel worlds in Transformers universe and there're ones in which Planet X still exists. Noisemaze and Soundwave have reached such universe."

 

Eh, I'd say Headmasters-Daniel and Kicker own him hard in that department.

Well, one of them's gotta be the responsible one. Shades of Alexis.  

no. No, they will not.

It was like... that was just bad. not even a sound effect of crunching metal!

Hmm, sounds a bit familiar. You sure you've talked about it before?

I do appreciate the work montage. I do love those.  

Well, it's Lori.

I see he took notes from headmasters Scorponok.

I legit laughed out loud when he did. Oh, all right!



This is something he's gotta do himself!

I think latecomers to these watch-throughs have no idea what we're talking about.  

After all this time and three series, yup.

They used a lot of 1986 movie quotes throughout their fight and the engine trouble. It legit got distracting in places.

I legit found this to be heartwarming. Not gonna lie. I love it when the good guys work together and the bad guys help out like this.

It's over 9000!!!!!!!

How many fucking times could you have used that damned thing before, Galvy?!  

I'm going with it is. It doesn't make much sense otherwise. Just a stylistic choice.

More movie quotes, too. "I still function..."

Yeah. Again I legit got a little teary-eyed. Not as much as 'Something Robotic This Way Comes', but close.

I fucking love the "OUR WORLDS ARE IN DANGER!" monologue at the beginning.  

it's her. it's her and NOTHING anyone says convinces me otherwise. That's Alexis from Armada and Energon and we love her! And I love that they included her!

Plus the Rock might sure for trademark infringement. He'll take you down Know Your Role Boulevard to the Smackdown Hotel!

Which... makes sense for the guy. Goodbye, Optimus' Magic-Mushroom!

i got some serious, Star Trek TOS 'Risk is our Business' vibes from Prime's speech.

Well, aside from Optimus Prime and Hot Shot he's the only Autobot to appear in all three series.

BAH GAWD, KING! IT'S A PIER-SIX BRAWL OUT THERE! THEY'VE LOST CONTROL! I-STONE COLD! STONE COLD IS HERE!!!!!!!

i actually like that. He's the biggest of them all, and has the best toy. So why not?

Honestly? I don't mind. Makes sense for the goober.  

Well, they've been on duty for thousands of years. Now that they don't have the Ancient Decepticons or the Cyber-Planet Key to guard, why not?

Liege, come on! I don't want you to get banned!

Aww.  

So do I. Come on, Generations Select! Or Buzzworthy!

override and Lori were the best characters in this show.

This makes Coby and Lori's relationship look like Grade-A drama and Oscar-worthy writing. The heck did this come from?!

I actually felt sorry for him.

Alexis is also the only one moving. I wouldn't call it 'insulting'. Heck, that they got acknowledged is quite endearing to me.

This... well, like I said in the old Energon thread. "Even in a still shot, Kicker still looks like an asshole."

What a wonderful shot to end on.  

When you do Animated, could you please post a link to the thread here? I missed it when you put this one up.

 

And now...

[Victor_Caroli] It is the year 2006...[/Victor_Caroli]

The first live-action movie was supposed to come out in 2006, after the end of Cybertron. It got pushed back to 2007, though. Hasbro needed product on the shelves, so they created a filler line named...

Classics 2006

This line brought in all-new molds for G1 characters, along with unreleased Minicon teams, the Energon combiners, the Botcon 2007 toys, and some other flotsam and jetsam. This was supposed to be a stopgap until the live-action movie's toyline... but this spawned the entire Generations juggernaut we know today. I'm not sure if it's the first line dedicated to bringing back the old favorites and not just part of it.

To represent this legit-historic line, here's the two faction leaders-Optimus Prime and Megatron!



Here's Optimus Prime with the Fansproject G3 trailer and Megatron in Nerf-style pistol mode. His feet can fold out to stand stably. Optimus is a trailer cab, with his weapons fully-integrated into his vehicle mode. Although this isn't the last time Megatron turns into a gun, IIRC it's the last time he does so at this size. I prefer these colors for Megs to the Henkei release, for the record. I think they pop more.



Here's Optimus with the trailer opened, and Megatron in robot mode. Optimus also has a weapon from TFC Toys' Gears of War II upgrade set. Far as I know, Megatron never got any upgrade kits designed for him. A shame, there.



And here they are as-is. Optimus has a ball-jointed head, universal shoulders, elbow bend and rotation but nothing in the wrists. He's got some waist articulation, universal hips, hip swivel and 90-degree knee bend. His windvane and smokestacks transform into weapons for him and I fucking LOVE that. Megatron's got a ball-jointed head, universal shoulders, upper arm swivel and 90-degree elbows. I like his cannon underslung his arm like that. I looks beefier and more powerful to me. No waist swivel, sadly, but he's got universal hips, thigh swivel and 90-degree knees. His long heels and heavy ratchets means he can stand stably.

Optimus has large chunks of kibble on his forearms, but they don't really interfere with articulation. I think of them as shields. Megatron's wings are big, but as mentioned, he's got enough heels and ratchets in the legs to offset that.

Both toys have been surpassed in later years, but for me, they've got a charm to them and aren't really 'bad' toys. They're the first, and do their jobs well.  

 

Cybertron ends with an Optimus Prime giving up leadership to go off to deep space to build Space Bridges.

Animated begins with an Optimus Prime yet to obtain greatness off in deep space building Space Bridges.

Actually did like this inclusion of Armada kids and Kicker. Gives the show something of an "end of an era" feel since it's both the end of Hasbro and Takara co-producing TF fiction and now right before when the first Bay movie comes out.

Though I do love how even Energon's last appearance has them mess up by using Hot Shot when they should have used Ironhide lol. Never change Energon.

 

And thus ends a truly benighted era in franchise history. Cybertron was the best of the Unicron trilogy, but that's like saying a car with two flat tires is better than one with four flat tires or one with no wheels at all.

 

Passing the universe torch from Unicron trilogy to animated.

 

And thus, we have reached the end of Cybertron. It was a fun and mostly positive ride--probably my third favorite of the shows we've watched so far, just above Neo and behind Armada and Beast Wars. But, with that out of the way, it's time to unveil my masterpiece: @Tetratron this one's for you and the rest of the crew.

Show pitch for the TFW rewatch crew

 

Okay! We'll do lunch. Have your people call my people. We'll get a full treatment together, a pilot episode. It'll be huge!

Okay, but honestly? That's pretty damned funny and cool. Thanks for putting that together.  

 

Thanks for the positive feedback! This was my first time writing a pitch like this, so I'm glad it's gone over well so far.