EPISODE 43: FAREWELL! LIO CONVOY (飛び出せ! 惑星ガイア)
This is how it ends. Not with a bang, but with an anguished scream of my fracturing mental state.

Spoiler

It was a tall order for the series to end on as down a note as episode 42, and thankfully like so many other things, Beast Wars II managed to fall short of that goal. But honestly it mostly did because like in so many other instances, Scuba saves the day. He has been a delight and an absolute rock in the crap storm that has been this series' descent into frustrating awfulness since about its halfway point. So rejoice that it doesn't end on an F as it instead just scrapes its way into D territory.

Because that's about the only thing to celebrate with this junk finale. The confusing, out-of-nowhere nonsense that is the green lion informs almost everything that happens with its magical stupid nonsense. And in doing so he (they?) neuter Galvatron to the point of being frustrating worthlessness, steal whatever meager spotlight the other Maximals and Predacons might've had in favor of shining it on themselves, use all of this build for more baffling shilling of the greatness of Lio Junior, and generally ensuring that this show goes out on an awful, awful nonsense. And to just give us a final kick in the teeth we get a weird and out-of-place 4th-wall-breaking bit right at the end as it leads into a bizarre sequel hook non ending that I'm pretty sure from reading ahead has almost no real, tangible impact on what's going to happen in Beast Wars Neo save for some glorified cameos. So what was the point?

What was the point of any of this? The powers from nowhere? the sabotaged characters? The ass-pulls? the fact that we don't even know the ultimate fate of most of the Predacons?

This episode sets out to give us closure and accomplishes basically nothing satisfactorily. Thank Primus Scuba was here or I might've been tempted to give it a worse grade than it got. Because I don't think I've ever had a Transformers show that showed intriguing promise early on only to fizzle out into something so profoundly dumb that it almost makes me hate the entire series retroactively.

What a disappointment...

Spoiler

-Before we dive into the abyss of madness, you wanna know something fun? Pretty much every other episode of the series so far has been slavishly accurate to a particular runtime of 23:05. The first two episodes ran about 10 seconds short and episode 30 (Gigastorm's Betrayal) was one second shorter, but otherwise they've all been 23:05 right on the nose. But not the finale. What should be the most important episode of the series is also the shortest by far at 22:40. they've cut like 25 seconds out of the episode. Now 20 of that could come from removing the "next episode" preview since there isn't a next episode. But you'd think for this being such an important piece of the series they would redirect that time and budget towards a satisfying conclusion. Nope! Not only that but they've seemingly shaved 5 other seconds of the runtime without sacrificing the 1:30 opening sequence or the 1:10 closing credits.

I get the feeling that speaks to the level of commitment this series had from its production staff. Very much a "who cares, it's just dumb filler for a silly baby show that nobody who matters actually could like."

-As is normal, I always watch the title sequence again during the final episode to see if my thoughts on it have changed since it debuted.

I don't think they have. The song is catchy as long as I don't look at the translated lyrics, which make absolutely no sense at all.

Also there's far too much Lio Junior. But at least there is a brief cool shot of the Tako Tank rising from the waves to face down a foe. The kind of shot we should've gotten in a better series all about Scuba.

-The narrator reminds us that "Artemis and Moon's good work" moved the moon to block the Angolmois. They didn't work. They just prayed and a literal miracle happened out of nowhere.

-Also we get reminded for Lio Junior and his noble efforts to save Lio Convoy that caused the weird mystery green lion to appear. Sorry, the "legendary" green lion. From a legend that only came into spoken existence about 15 seconds after the lion appeared.

-then we replay the entire Gigastorm "fight". not that it was a fight.

-And title card. For the last time.

-Galvatron goes to the side of the fallen Gigastorm, who cries and apologizes to his brother. And Galvatron tells him he fought well and praises him (according to Gigastorm, for the first time). And then Gigastorm dies.

Don't cry for the show's dignity. It's already dead.​

It's actually really touching.

Oh, psych. He's not dead. Galvatron tells us he just "ran out of energy" so he's unconscious.

that's actually kind of cruel. not to Gigastorm (though it is), but to the audience. I know it's a comedy show and we should expect this sort of gag (and I wasn't put off when the same gag happened in Beast Wars with Silverbolt & Blackarachnia, or when it'll happen in Animated with Optimus' 30-seconds death) but something here didn't make me laugh, I just furrowed my brow and said "really?"

-Galvatron stares down the mystery lion and asks "are you a ghost of Lio Convoy?"

What happens when you try and fail to rip off Dragon Ball Z​

-More needlessly named attacks (Galvatron charges in tank mode using his "drill destroyer" and the green lion runs with a point energy aura called the "Matrix Lion Arrow"

I've complained a lot about named attacks lately and the thing is I like them, but not when they're overdone. If they kept it so that they were just finishing moves or just for big situations, that'd be one thing. But especially in the last while we've gotten fights that are nothing but the sides trading named attacks back and forth for the whole duration. And made worse when everyone has such a deep well of named attacks that every fight randomly busts out a brand new one we've never seen before.

-From the collision Galvatron senses that the power comes from the Energon Matrix and it means Lio Convoy must have survived. On cue the green lion separates into Convoy and Junior. I guess nobody told them that the fusion dance only lasts for 30 minutes.

-It says something that Lio Junior's transformation sequence is like 3x as long as Convoy's. Something like "LOOK AT ME AND HOW IMPORTANT I AM! LOVE ME AND SHOW YOUR LOVE BY BUYING MY TOY!"

-And only after they transform do the rest of the Maximals rejoice that their comrades are alive. Especially Apache, who sounds like he's going to break into tears.

-Convoy doesn't say anything though. He only nods stoically in acknowledgement.

-And then Junior ruins it by suggesting that the two of them should take out the Predacons "all at once". That... seems like a stupid plan. You barely end up hanging on even ground with Galvatron. What makes you think you can take him and the other four functional Preds all at once? Even if Dirgegun and Thrustor are jokes.

-But Convoy stops him. Phew, it might've taken until the final episode but he's going to show sense and stand up to Junior, telling him the error of his ways, tactically.

-Or not. Because he stopped him not out of tactical caution, but because "fighting is not the only way to solve problems."

So I guess he's cool with being a hypocrite when nobody's watching, but has to put on a good show when impressionable dumb minds are there to witness his behavior.

-Galvatron congratulates Convoy for having such an impressive power held in reserve for this battle and Convoy... outright admits that he has no idea what it is or how it works.

Brilliant tactical decision, chief. Just... spectacular.

-Then he says he doesn't intend to settle this fight through violence and asks Galvatron why he wants power so much.

Clearly he wasn't paying attention last episode when Galvatron went into explicit detail as to why he felt he needed power (to subjugate the universe and enforce peace on it, because you can't trust a free universe to act peacefully).

-Really, what a waste this whole sequence is.

-And then Junior has to but in and say "that's not true!" referring to Galvatron's assertion that you need power to bring order to the universe.

What do you know, twerp? You're like 6 weeks old.

-And then it's Junior's turn to lecture, talking about how beings can achieve unity through understanding like how he and Convoy did to form the green lion.

Ugh. stop.

-And of course since we need Galvatron to be the inarguable bad guy he doesn't have a cogent response. Just grumbling about how the Maximals don't get it and they're going to have to fight.

-but suddenly the ground shakes and up through the rock in a flood of angolmois lava stuff emerges the one true hero of this series: SCUBA!

Sadly not the hero of this story. Even though he should be.​

That's how you make an entrance.

-And then he pops out with "Scuba has returned" with some extra emphasis when he says his name.

This show doesn't deserve you, you glorious paragon of coolness.​

Damn, he's so cool.

-Scuba says he didn't destroy the core of THE ARTIFICIAL PLANET NEMESIS™ because he figured out that blowing up the ship would've destroyed Gaia as well. At least someone in this mess is thinking.

Honestly, I'd be OK with the entire solar system being engulfed in a supernova of Angolmois energy. Because Scuba, Navi, and the Tako Tank would probably survive and that's all that matters.​

-Also where the heck is Navi in all of this?

-But never mind that. Scuba continues his explanation of why he didn't just blow up the ship by displaying charts that outline his plan.

Scuba: Kicking ass with science more than Wheeljack ever did.​

This series doesn't deserve Scuba.

-Then (I think) all the other Maximals make some vague cheering noises. Odd

-So Convoy tells Galvatron that he should probably evacuate his troops before the ship blows up. Because we're not solving our problems with violence. Just a violent explosion that was caused relatively non-violently.

-And then Thrustor says it'd be wonderful to be blown to bits with THE ARTIFICIAL PLANET NEMESIS™ "like a rose falling to rosey bits"

what?

I get it, he and Dirgegun are idiots. But this is dumb even for them.

-And Hellscream agrees.

-Galvatron decries the rest of the Predacons for taking the threat seriously, saying that they'll defend their base to the bitter end. So he transforms to dragon mode and... flies away.

-Convoy says he's going to give chase and so Junior says he's coming too. They share some apparently meaningful looks and then fly off together.

-Santon wants to follow, but Skywarp stops him saying they don't need to be his guardians anymore now that "he's been accepted as a full-fledged warrior by Lio Convoy"

1) He really hasn't. He's going with Convoy because he's like a walking superpower generator for the pair of them. Kinda like what Skywarp and Santon are for Junior

2) He also hasn't matured at all. He's the same whiny, angry, selfish jerk he's always been

3) Stop just telling us this stuff, show. If you think he's earned this praise, show him earning it.

-Meanwhile the rest of the Maximals want to evacuate as ordered but they can't because Lio Junior took off and with him went the ability to form Magnaboss.

-So the Predacons attack, not intending to give up. Also they can all fly so they're not trapped on the planet the way the Maximals are.

-GIANT NAMED ATTACK SUPER MONTAGE! Except Kid and Santon, who don't have named attacks.

-Meanwhile we check in with Moon and Artemis, who are glowing for some reason while Artemis serenely says she's sure that Lio Convoy and Lio Junior will destroy THE ARTIFICIAL PLANET NEMESIS™ before it endangers them.

Um, excuse me Artemis. It's Scuba that's done all the heavy lifting.

-Apparently the moon being subject to the barrage of Angolmois is also killing Artemis and Moon?

Ehhh... stuff happens in war.

-The Lios follow after Galvatron, who leads them into... a cave.

-And then Galvatron says to "observe his true power" as he absorbs a crapload of Angolmois energy into his body and grows to enormous size.

-Our final commercial bumpers are the Lio Convoy and Lio Junior ones. Barf.

-Seriously, Lio Junior's voice is nails on a chalkboard at this point.

-What an idiot. Galvatron, powered by Angolmois energy, attacks with his Angolmois energy move. And it does nothing. Because of course it does.

-Convoy then, out of nowhere, that they can/must prevent the massive explosion of Angolmois by creating a bunch of shields out of their energon matrices. Only... wasn't the shield each of them made a personal one that only surrounded their bodies individually? So... what the hell is this?

-Ugh. Lio Junior says that they have to try to protect the peace of the universe because that's why Maximals exist. And Convoy says "I never imagined that you would teach me that."

Even less than 10 minutes from the conclusion of the series we're gonna keep on shilling Junior as hard as we possibly can.

-And then he calls Junior "his son".

and they merge into the Green Lion. And create a gigantic cyclone of little shield bubbles that all fly right into Galvatron and create a green aura to do... something.

What the hell is even going on.

-Meanwhile the fight goes on outside but we don't really see any of it. At least until Scuba shows up having stolen the Predacon ship because Scuba is the most awesome character in this or several other series.

-Hellscream questions the "heroes" stealing others' stuff. He's not wrong. But Scuba has a great comeback, suggesting that if he's not allowed to take it then he might as well just destroy it.

-Thrustor and Dirgegun want to escape, but Hellscream of all bots says not to run until Galvatron returns.

Then he starts talking like he had a change of heart towards the idea of being loyal to Galvatron, only its interrupted by the unconscious Gigastorm being burned by an encroaching flow of boiling hot Angolmois lava.

Just in case you had any hopes that they might pull out a serious finale in the closing minutes.​

-Then Gigastorm looks at everyone and it's implied that his being "out of energy" was a ploy and he's been faking being unconscious this whole time.

-Scuba then suddenly realizes they've drifted extremely close to the moon.

-Back at the leader fight, the narrator helpfully explains to us that the nonsense tactic the green lion is using is to divide up the Angolmois energy in Galvatron's body into "small capsules" to negate its effects and prevent it from exploding. This would probably have been fine if it wasn't something they just made up in the last 5 minutes.

-And right then the planet starts exploding, but convoy says they won't give up and leave until the job is done.

-Galvatron screams and suddenly a ton of little angolmois packets burst up out of the ground and fly past the Maximals while THE ARTIFICIAL PLANET NEMESIS™ begins to explode around them.

-And when it's all over Galvatron is small again and the green lion is in robot mode, making him look like a green Convoy. That's boring. his lion form is slightly different from Convoy's lion mode, so why not make his robot mode a little different too?

It's never too late to sell a repaint.​

-Sensing he's beaten, Galvatron activates the last bit of Angolmois in his body in that crystal thing in his chest, saying that if he can't beat hte Maximals he'll at least take them with him.

-Green Convoy manifests a couple of energy swords from.. somewhere and *gasp* Galvatron actually opens his mouth to talk and gloat! Well, ok, his mouth is always open. But he stops talking through gritted teeth.

-Ok, I'm going to give it to the show for some crafty fighting: The two sides clash, but Green Convoy separates into his two component bots and in the surprise Lio Convoy uses his claw weapon to shatter the crystal orb in Galvatron's chest.

The literal embodiment of all of our hearts breaking over this show's fall from grace.​

-Glavatron commends Convoy's creativity and then collapses... I guess dead? the screen turns red, a strong indicator that he's probably just croaked.

-But there's no time to ask what happened as THE ARTIFICIAL PLANET NEMESIS crashes into the moon and explodes. So Artemis and Moon are dead too?

-Or not. The narrator tells us that somehow Nemesis and the moon fused together into one celestial body that now orbits Gaia.

What? How? Why? That's nonsense!

-And apparently Artemis and Moon are fine, though they're now in a weird crystal-like room that neither of them recognize. Though they know they're safe.

-And Artemis doesn't remember any of it. Because of course she doesn't.

-And then out in space there's a weird void. And then a flash of the Maximal symbol and all the Maximals are floating in it. Because I guess the Predacon ship was destroyed in the explosion? The hell?

"We don't know how we're ending this one, so here you go!"​

-Suddenly Convoy and Junior appear and Junior explains that convoy used the last of his energy to save everyone and shove them into this wormhole created by the explosion, which will take them wherever the Maximals are next needed.

-And then Convoy faces the camera and I think addresses the audience saying that they're leaving the normal dimension but will meet everyone again in the future.

Umm, ok? This is a weird ending.

-But Lio Junior gets a close up because he's soooo cool.

-Then on a long shot of Gaia and the moon we hear the Maximals bid us farewell while Gigastorm shouts "I'm still out here!" and a message pops up to say "thank you for cheering us on until now.

Joke's on you, show. I wasn't cheering by the end.​

And that was Beast Wars II. Roll credits.

Pros
+SCUBA!



Cons
-Deus Ex Liona ending

-Galvatron loses his cool factor

-The Maximals and Predacons that aren't Galvatron, Lio Convoy, or Lio Junior are entirely superfluous (except Scuba)

-More blatant Lio Junior shilling

-Nonsense powers out of nowhere

-Weird fourth-wall breaking non-ending

-Disappointing that this is how a show that used to be interesting ends.

-Sets up something of a sequel hook, but it mostly doesn't come to pass.

-So how many of the Predacons besides Gigastorm died?

 

Wow. that was... a ride.

I'm legitimately really sad that it ended this way because I was getting into the show a fair bit before things went south around the mid point.

At least Neo is supposed to be a lot better.


I'm going to try and do my two wrap-up posts over the back half of this week just to make up for the lost week in the middle of April. Then I'll probably take a week to recharge before we begin Neo around the 17th or so. Because I need a little bit of distance from this ending before I launch into a new series. I'd hate to lose any semblance of even my subjective concept of fairness to a series by having early viewings tainted by remembering how much this series frustrated me.

 

No sense being lazy this late in the show! *Sees all the stock footage* Oh, never mind...  

Sometimes just plain competence can be the best thing to be.

A bit of a little swerve, but I like it.  

It's a very vague, non-answer, isn't it. Like you'll say later, not good when the bad guy's got the better answer.

By the end the show's back at the concession stand in the back of the stadium! or something. I think my metaphor got away from me.  

ugh, I hate that. pick a scene and stick with it, show!

Dammit, show! Even without any explanation I preferred Junior in how he was going!

When you shoot to kill, shoot to kill!

Well, worked with Unicron.  

Ah, mood whiplash. Where would we be without you? Enjoying a much-more consistent show, that's what.

God, that still gets me.  

Although all seriousness? A legit clever plan by the Maximals.  

Well, one good thing about his upgrade!

Eh, maybe she wants to stretch her metaphorical legs.  

Hey, points to them for all wanting to sacrifice themselves and spare the others.

About damned time, Convoy! We'll make a leader out of you yet!

Spoiler: No, we don't, and no, he doesn't.  

All I can add is this is a very well-written dissection of all of Junior's flaws and how stupid it is to pull this bullshit now.

They really are just a pair of pants and shirt for Magnaboss, aren't they.

Too late, show. Too. Fucking. Late.

I guess I really was wrong when I had hoped they saved the budget for some big finale. Screw that!  

And come on, Convoy. He's got a sorta-good point. Lob it back hard...

... Or don't lob it back hard ands fumble the question?

No, seriously. That doesn't make a lick of sense! What the hell?

Of course we've gotta have random-ass powers pulled out of their exhaust ports.

That is a legit cool shot.

What'd I tell you?  

Way too damned long overall. And too little happened in the interim overall.

Same here, sadly.

Well, at least his toy will be stable.  

Well fuck you too, Galvatron! Man, it's bad when the big bad is shilling Junior like this at the expense of one of his soldiers!

Sadly, kinda is this time...

'Why not' sums up these past few episodes perfectly!

Ugh! They're pulling everything out of their exhaust ports at this point!

The moon's being attacked by hentacles?!   

I am, too. And that's bad. Nice job, show. You fucked up this badly with these two characters.

Great. Voltron just showed up.

I don't know. I don't want to know.

It's lazy and just smacks of, "The show is over. We're done."

Again. When the 1986 movie does this stuff better...

Inuyasha and the ridiculous number of sword power-ups...

Honestly... i wopuldn't have blamed you if you rated it an F. I don't think anyone would've.

*Looks at Beast Wars and even Beast Machines in abject sadness and frustration*

Oh fuck you, show. Fuck you for that false drama bullshit!

Blackarachnia at the very least let us breathe a bit, and Optimus seemed more a gag/get it out of the way than anything.

At this point I'm expecting, "Laser Trigger Pull!" or "Deadly Dodge!"

...

Turn in your Matrix and go sit in the corner!

he's at least tied with Ginrai for worst good-guy leader we've had so far.

What a waste this whole show is!

Oh, thank God! Scuba, save us!

he looks so pleased, as he should be!

Sounds like pretty much every Doctor since 2005.  

This is something he's got to-

No, no. Neither of them deserve that. Fuck you both.

God, that's so pathetic it's funny.  

Save the budget even at the end!

Thank god!

So, I checked the grades for each othe previous series. I skipped the recap episode of Victory and Zone overall. But...

The Rebirth overall received a C.
The Final Showdown on Earth received a B-.
A Battle... and Then... received a B-.
Showdown! The Fortress vs the Victory Unification received an A.
Nemesis Part 2 received an A+.
And Endgame Part III: Seeds of the Future received a B-.

So the finale for Beast Wars II was the worst by far. And honestly... maybe only Energon might hit these lows? Just ouch!

 

While I won't pretend Beast Wars Neo is a flawless masterpiece, I will say it has something Beast Wars II never had—E F F O R T ! You'd be surprised how much people actually giving a damn can make a difference.

Filler's gonna filler.

RIP Yukikaze

Beast Wars II doesn't do character development. Besides I'm sure most of the staff was too busy getting ready for Beast Wars Neo.

I think that's just a Japanese language thing where they'll refer to the person they're talking to in the third person.

And foreshadowing!

That's because Lio Convoy's character is nothing. He's an even blander version of Prime Optimus Prime.

That was always bound to happen when your heroes fight for vague concepts such as justice or freedom without going into detail about why they're doing so or what type of justice and freedom they're actually fighting for.

That's what I've been saying about five episodes in.

Beast Wars II is old hat, Beast Wars Neo is where it's at!

It's the penultimate episode of a filler series, I'm surprised it's not a clip show.

And there was very little potential to start with. Beast Wars II is basically the Great Value version of Beast Wars Season 1.

Gotta stretch time to work on Beast Wars Neo.

I'm pretty sure Galvatron would have ended up beating the unruliness out of Junior a long time ago instead of playing softball with him like Lio Convoy's been doing.

Nice try mister, but we both saw The Empire Strikes back and you're not Luke Skywalker and Lio Convoy isn't Leia.

Apache has always been a bootlicking idiot literally since the first episode. Beast Wars II doesn't know what character development is.

It looks like the Enigma of Combination in that horrible Machinema series.

This is anime, naivete is wisdom.

Nice try, but it was shitty when they pulled that crap in the 1986 movie, and it's even more shitty here!

But didn't Lio Convoy seem especially weak and incompetent ever since Lio Junior showed up?

To be fair, the advent of the Kwisatz Haderach Super Saiyan had been foreshadowed for a while in the Namek Saga.

It's actually Cheetor. Cyberverse Cheetor.

To explain where the central mcguffins for Beast Wars Neo came from. That's the entire point of Beast Wars II's existence. This entire series was just the origin story of the Angolmois capsules.

One less second wasted on Beast Wars II is one that can be better spent on Beast Wars Neo.

They kept the Maximals in their thoughts and prayers, what more do you want?!

Fucking bootlicker.

Nope, that was bullshit when 00 Gundam did that peace-through-understanding bullshit and it is also bullshit here.

There is nothing of value on Gaia.

I'm surprised the writers didn't just make those two drones for all the good they ended up doing.

It's too late, the writers already moved on to Beast Wars Neo.

I'll take cliche'd anime bullshit for 500, LeVar.

BAM! This series has finally outlived it's usefulness, that's a wrap!

 

Before I come back around to comment on the comments, I have to say that I've been watching Visionaries the last couple of days after finding someone who was sharing the series ripped off a Europe-only DVD set of the series.

It's fun to see all the ties to the G1 Transformers in writers, actors (the villains' leader is basically evil Sparkplug, Optimus is repurposed as the bad guys' dumb muscle, the lone female goodie pretty much splits Arcee and Marissa Faireborn right down the middle, etc) and production staff. The 3 major non-TF actors are even a lot of fun: Roscoe Lee Brown (Kingpin from the 90s Spider-Man cartoon) pulls double duty as a snarling mercenary bad guy and the amoral mystery wizard, Jennifer Darling (Irma from 80s TMNT) is the evil counterpart to Not-Arcee, and Jonathan Freaking Harris (Dr. Smith from OG Lost In Space) is the sycophantic suck-up on the villain side.

Also the show actually looks really good on account of having been animated by Tokyo Movie Shinsa. It maybe lacks the finer details and shading of the best of Toei's G1 TF work, but the human characters are very nicely designed. I'm thoroughly enjoying it and am sad that it only lasted 13 episodes. I might even have to see if I can dig up my old toys (I had almost all the Darkling Lords except one of the ones that only came with a vehicle. But I only had one Spectral Knight, the cheetah one. I seem to recall that Visionaries were really hard to find in Canada and the only time I remember getting them was when I went across the border to the huge mega mall in Bellingham, WA.)

Anyway, point is that if there was ever a classic Hasbro property that could do with a revival I think this is it: Post-apocalyptic magitech fantasy world with crazy powers, magic animal transformations, morally ambiguous wizards, and all sorts of crazy weirdness? Think of what they could do. Plus while the 80s hologram tech isn't something that would draw in the kids now, they could probably do something cool with, I dunno, simplistic LED screens or something.

 

In retrospect, it sounds as though Scuba and the Space Pirate Seacons were easily the best part of this show.

 

Eh, I dunno. I liked most of the characters. The only ones I haven't warmed up to (and I don't think it'll happen in this last round of eps) are the Magnaboss guys. Artemis and Moon are just... there, and even then, Moon did a bit more (but not much) than Artemis ever did.

 

So... I finished the show. Rather disappointing finale, I expected better. Some neat sequences, but not much to write home about

Nevertheless, I still liked the show overall. BWII started pretty well, but once the Magnaboss guys were introduced is where I felt the series started falling apart. It's the opposite of BW, which started pretty weak, but got better as it went on.

I liked most of the characters, with my favorites being Starscream/Hellscream and BB/Max-B as well as the Jointrons (Shady boi and me seem to be the only people in this thread that like the crazy goofballs). Megastorm/Gigastorm, the Seacons, Apache, Bighorn, Tonbot and Scuba were also fun. It took me a while to warm up to Tasmania Kid, but by the third and fourth episode, I kinda saw what they were going for: he's the stupid kid who is gung-ho yet means well (basically Jimmy Olsen from Superman). So yeah, I did feel like his idiocy was mainly part of the character rather than being unintentional.

Lio Convoy I did like in the first half of the show (there were moments where his actions were a bit dumb, but I still liked him), but again, like the show itself, he kinda was bogged down by the second half.

Galvatron was okay, but I expected better (it's odd to see that Barneytron is a vast improvement over OG Megs, yet Galvy is a downgrade compared to the OG insane slow-burn master). Heck, I feel that they handled the villain behind-the-scenes better with RiD01 Megs.

The Autorollers and Insectrons only got the first few episodes, but their personalities were nicely handled despite being basically forgotten afterwards.

The worst characters in this show would have to be the Magnaboss guys. Lio Junior is such an inconsistent character. He ranges from okay (at least in two episodes) to bland to slightly annoying (most of his appearances) to annoying to the max (special episode). Santon and Skywarp are just non-entities and they really leave no impression on me. All I remember is them saying youngster a lot.

Artemis and Moon I could give or take. Moon at least was a bit more proactive than Artemis, but I felt they really weren't needed for this show.

So yeah, overall, even though this show really went down in the second half, I still enjoyed it well enough. It doesn't reach the level of G1 seasons three and four, BM and RiD01, but I think it's on the same level as BW, Victory and Zone for me. So yeah, not a perfect show, but fun nevertheless.

 

If this was a more defining characteristic of Galvatron's behavior it would've made him a much, much more compelling villain. And it would've made him unique. BW Megatron had elements of it, but it was mostly for manipulation rather than conviction. Deathsaurus had it, but mostly only retroactively with the "surprise, their space fortress is actually full of Decepticon family members!" twist. At this point we really hadn't seen a villain that was legitimately "the hero of his own story" with an apparent moral high ground or a belief that they were doing was right for any really altruistic or compassionate reason. It would've been interesting had they set this up to more strongly play to Galvatron's idea that he had to achieve peace by force/dominance because he felt that the Maximal idea of coexistence and non-confrontation was too weak to make anything that lasted, and that at some point he confronts Lio Convoy with this. Like full-blown monologue taunting Convoy about how the wishy-washy Maximals just put out one fire to let another one start and the Predacons won't allow that to happen. Plus that Convoy is a hypocrite for using force against the Predacons to create their version of peace while decrying the Preds application of force for peace on their terms.

This could play into the above too by having Convoy be unable to come up with a satisfactory response. Create doubt or a crisis of conscience in Convoy's mind

Yeah. It's surprising it doesn't work better considering that like 90% of the Predacons around the ship are total idiots, but I guess they couldn't have the good guys killing someone via an underhanded booby trap.

I half expected Kid to try and play off volunteering with some line about how one of the others are better suited to it or it's not his job to die for the team. But instead he just regularly volunteers and ends up looking better than Junior because he doesn't marry it to the idea of "I'm important! I have to do this because I need to look important and special!"

Given how they set up to form Megnaboss, it's more like a jumpsuit and a hat.

I think they were going for a response that sounds noble and poetic and failed to realize that it's a non-answer and only serves to make Convoy look like a weak-willed idiot.

The overdosing of unique power moves is one of those things that has bothered me about this series. I know that giving characters a bunch of different named attacks to fire off tends to be tradition, but at least in many instances the different attacks have different uses. Here they all tend to be kind of samey or at least accomplish the same sorts of things and it makes me wonder what the necessity of the difference is. Like why does Convoy use the Fire typhoon here when it doesn't appear to do any additional damage to Galvatron over what the normal wind-based one (which often also had an electrical component) would've been able to do? Or how does Apache's barrage of boob missiles differ in terms of expected damage from his more rarely used boob cannons? Differentiated attacks need differentiated purpose to make the most sense.

This scene is pretty much the only thing that saved the episode from an F.

He knows the nightmare is almost over.

And it's worse when you consider that I give The Rebirth a bit of a pass because it was never meant to be a finale. There's only so much you can do with what was supposed to be a 5-part premiere that got squashed down to 3 parts and then twisted into an abrupt ending that wraps everything up.

That's all I can ask for. So much of this show feels like they just didn't care. Half-baked ideas, poor communication between writers, a lack of any real planning. It's just a bunch of "good enough" stuff that happens as it all falls apart around them.

It's not even the Yukikaze. I think they said it's Skywarp and Santon's ship reinforced with parts from the Yukikaze (which was no longer space-worthy.)



I think that's just a Japanese language thing where they'll refer to the person they're talking to in the third person.

You might be right. I think I remember hearing somewhere that they don't necessarily do any sorts of second or third person pronouns, relying on names and indirect cues for people to pick up on who/what you're talking about. That seems weird given that Japanese is also the language that has like a dozen first person pronouns for every conceivable combination of gender/age/social strata/level of respectfulness, but then again I'm using English, the official language of "rules are for losers. Rules that you actually follow are for even bigger losers" so who am I to complain?

Prime Optimus at least has that sort of terribly flanderized "Optimus Prime as more of a symbol/living messianic archetype" thing going on. I'm not even sure what they were trying to do with Lio Convoy except make him as blandly white bread as possible. Unless the intent was to make him unsure and ill-prepared and kind of be like Optimus Primal and they just failed miserably for fear of making him look bad or something.

I don't know. Given how hard he was shilling Junior he'd probably be one of those annoying super-permissive parents who talks about how smart and developed their kid is while the little goblin runs around the store unchecked, knocking stuff of shelves in the name of "exploring their place in the world around them"

I'm glad this is a ways off in the sequence of shows, because I don't think I'm prepared for the awfulness since I've only seen like 1 or 2 episodes of each series in the trilogy.

Sort of? If it was their intent to use that to foreshadow/explain all of this they did a piss-poor job of it. Because whatever amounts happened were just as likely to be chalked up to kneecapping all the other characters in the name of making sure Lio Junior looks good.

So what was the point of the other 42 and a half episodes?

They really were. I'd also put Navi in there too for as much as you can count her since she's "just" the computer AI and not a full fledged Cybertronian and has somewhat limited utility to the story. Mostly she's enjoyable because she's the only one who seems to actually be upset by the rampant insanity going on around her.

Starscream had his moments, as did Megastorm, but as soon as they were reformatted they lost most of their personality and became a generic underling and an overly emotional crybaby respectively.

The Autorollers looked like they could've gone places too, but they had their one mini arc introducing the Insectrons as their rivals and then they receded into the background never to matter again.

I feel like they chose badly in terms of developing characters. The ones they could've done something with they mostly didn't and the ones they did try to develop they made a lot of missteps.

Most of the Predacons were cool, but then they all flatlined and didn't go anywhere good (the Angolmois reformatting seemed to be a turning point where everyone settled into a pretty generic groove). The Maximals largely got shoved aside for Lio Junior. Skywarp and Santon could've been great but they were just accessories for Junior.

The show set itself up for a lot of intriguing possibilities and then halfway through sorta threw its hands up and went "this is good enough, who cares." and stopped trying.

and my biggest problem with the Jointrons remains that they should've earned more ire from the Maximals for their flightiness. They would come in, screw up, ruin everything for the others, take all the credit for whatever good things happen, then flitter off while Convoy just shrugs and says "it's fine, they have a different way of doing things."

No! He should be annoyed by them. If everyone was frustrated by them and tried harder to stop them from fouling stuff up or keep them in line it might've been OK. But they got to be idiots with no blowback.



I can't wait to see how Neo can move on from here. Because there's nowhere to go but up.

 

The problem I have is that once Lio Junior and his guys appears, the party-like atmosphere of the first half that made me enjoy the show a lot faded out considerably. The only characters who remained somewhat good were Starscream and BB (even when they got reformatted they were the best guys in every episode they were featured in) and (IMO) the Jointrons.

Personally, I felt the reaction from guys like Apache and Bighorn was good enough to show that the Jointrons weren't really the guys that they look forward to. Plus, I always found them to be kinda like a hybrid between the crazies of The Ninth Configuration, Wayne and Garth from Wayne's World, Cheech and Chong and a random abstract character from a Fleischer cartoon, and I love that.

Heck, I feel it could have been worse (it could have been a Chromedome or TFP Arcee scenario where they don't get reprimanded or scolded because they're the writers' pet). At least the Jointrons get as much as they throw IMO. The Maximals ain't thrilled about them, so if we didn't have that, I would have hated them, but thankfully, they did show them getting ticked at their weird behavior.

 

looking forward to your neo reaction, its so much better. a bit of forewarning to keep in mind though; Minor spoiler!

most of the maximal cast are youths and for a while are very lio junior-esque, dont let that get to you because you hate him. here they are purposely written that way so they can improve over time.

 

As long as they develop that's fine. My biggest issue with Lio Junior is that he doesn't develop. He starts out as a selfish, glory-seeking, egotistical whiner with an inferiority complex, stays that way until like 6 or 7 episodes before the end of the series, flips the switch and is better (with no real justification) for a few episodes, and then switches right back to his old ways right at the end. It would've been better if he had shown incremental and permanent improvement.

 

yeah, it works better in neo cause its a whole team, so each member just has one primary defining flaw(a coward, a goody goody, a showoff, etc.), and even if its retained, their growing as a group kinda makes it work more. lio junior was so overbearing because he was the only one who carries lot of those flaws.

still, word of warning, the youths will still be a bit annoying for the first handful of eps, so unlike lio junior, you can at least be ready to bear that burden(watch out for stampy the rabbit, his frightened wailing is like nails on chalk board, to me at least)

 

I've survived Wheelie, Chromedome, Supreme-commander-of-awesomeness Ginrai, the wangstiest periods of Nightscream, and Lio Junior. I think I'm prepared for whatever the show can throw at me.  

 

lol, on a related note, are you a naruto fan? the maximal break is voiced by narutos original voice actor, and the two are pretty damn similar overall

 

Yeah, I have watched Naruto and I did know that Junko Takeuchi has a role in this too. I found that after I discovered that she was also Moon in BWII, which made me laugh because he's a voice actress with one of the biggest, most high-profile roles in all of anime/cartoon pop-culture and she was reduced to playing the silly space rabbit robot as one of her earliest credits. From there I ended up seeing her listed role as Break and reading his page on TFWiki, finding out that the characters are similar and she even uses was must've been a prototype of the Naruto voice.

It won't be super familiar to me though because I watched Naruto via the English dub.

 

huh, i actually didnt know they played moon too

 

The wrap-up stuff will probably start going up tomorrow. I've used the past couple of days to finish a lot of the rebuilding of the workbook I track all this stuff on to make it more intuitive and easier for me to do the updates with each new series watched.

One interesting thing I did find as I was doing the alterations: Provided I didn't screw up the math too badly and counting any features like The Movie or "Lio Convoy is in Imminent Danger" from this series as 1 "episode" apiece, Episode 14 from this series ("The Combined Giant, Tripledacus". Ugh) was the 300th episode we've watched as part of this project.

Wow, we've wasted a lot of time watching and discussing cartoons to sell toys to kids  

 

What was Takara thinking placing 2 and Neo after Beast Machines since it will cause a huge contradiction that Blue Big Convoy comic fix the continuity error?