Yes, we saw it yesterday. Unfortunately we only got about half an episode though - it seems there had either been some miscommunication or a case of conflicting minds over at Hasbro USA, and even though Hasbro Nordic had initially been given clearance by Hasbro USA to let us show an entire episode, later we were told we couldn't show more than a portion of it.

It was a very interesting preview though, and I can tell you that even though I were very sceptical when I saw the first posters for the series a while ago, I think the cartoon may turn out to be quite entertaining. What struck me the most is that it seems all the characters will be portrayed with distinct personalities - a very welcome change compared to the three latest series, were most of the characters were blank slates.
There were also quite a few nods to the old fans - I haven't seen the clips on YouTube so I don't know what has been shown before, but the show actually starts with Optimus Prime looking at some archive clips from the war that ended a few hundred years ago - clips that are taken straight from the original G1 cartoon! And Ratchet is said to have taken part of that war, which poses the question if this is the original Ratchet, or just someone who shares the name.

That will have to be all for now; I've only just returned home and it's getting late over here, but I'm sure some of the other NTFA members will show up to tell you a bit more eventually.

 

Sweet. To everyone who saw the clip: Tell us more! We wants to know!

 

So TF Animated is a continuation of G1? TF Animated would have to be set in the future if the G1 war ended a few hundred years ago. Wasn't the G1 movie set in 2007?

 

The movie was 2005, The 3rd season was 2010 I believe.

 

I was one of the people who simply hated Animated after seeing the first teaser pics, but I was positively surprised when we saw this first episode. They're going for more characterization, more humor (which doesn't work every time, but still), and this entirely new, fresh take on Optimus Prime being a young and inexperienced officer in the Autobot army. The animation style definitely takes some getting used to, but I managed to see beyond the triangular shapes and weird proportions of the 'bots, and merely saw them as characters, and damn good characters at that! I will still not start collecting the toyline, but I will certainly check out the show.

 

Only in Japan. In the US, season 3 was set in 2006.

 

Animated takes place in the 22nd century (or was it 23rd?). Some notes (I don't know what is already known so bear with me):

Blitzwing has three faces, although the third wasn't very clear (the entire Decepticon scene is in the dark). First is the strict monocled guy, the second is a very clichéd Arnie "stupid" German accent and the third was just crazy and singing. Not too sure about this guy, but he might make a cool toy.

Allspark looks vaguely Matrix-shaped with handles, but it's much bigger. So far the only Allspark-carrier has been... Ratchet  

Blackarachnia is exactly her BW self (her alt mode is considered organic, btw) and Starscream is exactly his G1 self, personality-wise.

Ratchet has a mix of Ironhide/Kup with the "old-timer" personality thing going on. As mentioned, not clear whether he is actually THE Ratchet.

Sentinel (Prime) is an officer in the Autobot army and Ultra Magnus is the Supreme Commander who bosses Optimus around.

Optimus trained at the Autobot academy and is going about doing heroic stuff from the very beginning, but there must be a reason why he's stuck on a crappy repair mission...

Optimus' axe has quite a few features except the energon blade. It has a rocket thruster on it, and the handle can extend Dragonball style for him to do polevaults. Somehow Optimus can also fire nets.

 

sounds promising!

 

My take on it.

If you can get past the animation witch is diffrent then the other shows it will seem like a very good show. its nice to see a young inexperienced prime for once and not the know it all leader. The high commander is Ultra Magnus and seems like a bit of an old timer.

Blitzwing is probaly schizo but he looks to have the same look like his old G1 , but as posted the decepticons are black so you cant see but you can see the tank gun on his back .

Starscreams seems as illojal as ever. looks slick in his red/black colors you see him a bit in the end credits

Megatron sollks awesome with his armcannon, a glimps of him in color is shown in the end credits. to. Mainly black and grey wonder what he transform into.

The big bulky decepticon I dunno , looks like a one eye bot, imagende Shockwave on 100 year streak on MacDonalds

Blackarachnia, and evil female ,. ..interesting.

THe autobot crew so far consist of only 4. Prime show of his moves with his energon axe in an early stage to svae the other autobots from some space bridge opening and a bunch of rocks flying around, looks really cool.

Bumblebee is the young inexperienced teeneagre I would describe him as an Bulkhead the big guy that looks though but is probably rather nice and clumsy.

Prowl ..well a Ninja robot..looks awesome but I think he dont have any combat experience but wants to

Ratchet..as posted above, a merge of kup/ironhide and ratchet from old. looks to be scared from millions or years of battle. you can see it on his face he is tired of the fighting.

Overall the show got potential if you look beyond the animation , give it a chance with an open mind. The coolest thing is that MEgatron looks so much like his G1 character is scary. Im not going to collect the line but I might snagg an Megatron and Op from this line.

Mac

 

"Video killed the radio star", replace that with some fitting words and that's still my view at it.

 

Do we get to see what Magnus and Sentinel Prime look like?

 

I don't really have anything to say that hasn't been said already, but it looks promising!

Only their heads where shown on a monitor.

 

sounds good so far. was hoping for the bots to be more like the g1 version but im open to new stuff.

 

Definetly sounds promising. Did they show what Ultra Magnus and Sentinel Prime looked like? I'm kinda curious if SP is actually a Sentinel Prime homage, or more of a Omega Supreme homage (a "Sentinel"). I'm still trying to figure out if that was him in the first video we got. He was mostly covered in shadow, so we couldn't see much of him, but, he was a pretty bulky TF. I remember someone saying that Blitzwing wold only have 2 heads. I could see that being pretty easy to have in toy form, but three, that would be a little tricky. Though with the detail that we've seen so far in the toys, it sould definetly be possible for them to do.

Ok, cool. I've heard that Ultra Magnus's head does a good homage to his G1 self, what about Sentinel Prime?

 

This vid has got to be floating around on the net somewhere.

 

Sounds good! You're really lucky getting to see this early.

 

UM's head does indeed pay a good homage to his G1 self   , as for Sentinel... Uhm, how shall I best describe him. Imagine the cartoon Buzz Lighyear with exhaustpipes all over his head.

As for it floating around on the web. Forget it, none was filming it and the discs are destroyed  

 

Hmm...sounds interesting. I might have to find a picture of BL's head and digibash some exhaustpipes on it, lol.

 

I can't say for sure - the preview didn't give us enough hints - but I doubt it is a continuation of G1. I think it's more like R.I.D., where they dropped names and stuff to such an extent that it made you wonder if it had any relation to the G1 show.

Perhaps. He was actually kissing up to Megatron with a slithering, almost Igor-like display of loyalty in the clip we saw, but it was so exaggerated that it has to be just that - a display.

Prowl was a surprise and an enigma. I don't know what to make of him yet; he's talking in a strangely soft and aloof slightly Alan Rickman-like voice, at least part of the time. He can't be compared to any Transformers character we've seen before, at least not in the American cartoons.

I can't remember seeing Sentinel Prime actually, but I was a bit distracted since I also helped keep an eye on the audience, to make sure no one was fiddling with a hidden camera. As for Ultra Magnus... well, he was like a distorted version of the G1 version, with a big chin, IIRC, and a helmet a bit too small for his head. Think Geoff Senior drawing a resident of the Dead End or some of the other shadier districts on Cybertron. His colours were basically the same as in G1, except that he had a blue nose (if it was his nose, so it wasn't a "nose guard" or whatever you call those things on some medieval and viking helmets).

Not from us at any rate. We made sure that no one filmed it.