I want more of Unit:E

 

shockwaves voice is fine imo it fits his beefy design better than a g1/animated style voice

 

Agreed.

 

I would've let Cliffjumper live, especially since this is probably my favorite characterization of him.

I also would've traded in Ultra Magnus for Prowl (don't get me wrong, I like Prime Ultra Magnus but I think Prowl would've been a better fit). He would've had a lot more clashes with Wheeljack and the rest of the group than Ultra Magnus did and it would be doubted if he was a team player or not until he eventually proves himself.

I also would've added an episode or two showing the war on Cybertron leading up to the mass exodus (I know the games dealt with this but in my headcannon I view them as seperate).

 

1). Cliffjumper lives. He is exactly the character this show needed.
2). Instead of him dying, this is where Bumblebee's voice is torn out.
3). This lasts only until half way through season 1 where Operation Bumblebee takes place and Ratchet uses his newly regained confidence to fix the voice box. Afterwards, Bumblebee takes after Bluestreak being a jovial motormouth making up for lost time.
4). Arcee's character arc is that she is the only one to escape from Airachnid's torture and needs to overcome the trauma of that event.
5). Airachnid conversely sees Arcee as the one that got away and needs to finish what she started. She's scared of Megatron however and wants to stay neutral to him.
6). The Orion Pax arc lasts at least a whole season of him being a novice learning what being a Prime means. Maybe even from Season 1 Premiere. Never stupid enough to join the Decepticons.
7). Decide what's so special about Earth and stick to it. Don't make our insignificant little planet the kitchen sink of every Cybertronian secret under the sun.
8). Keep Insecticons as unique threat under control of Airachnid instead of a new flavor of basic cannon fodder.

That's the basics to fixing first two seasons.

 

only watched the first ep and thought it was boring as shit

 

Not being so reckless with these expensive animation models right out of the gate would be the wisest choice because it accounts for a lot of problems later on. The writing being rudderless was a big part of it too, but the fact that they immediately killed Cliffjumper and Skyquake off after introducing them to the audience was a massive red flag in hindsight. If they had just let Cliffjumper live... well, for one we wouldn't have "Cliffjumper dies" on the proverbial Transformers bingo card, but for two I agree with Rewind Eject, his personality would add so much to the team dynamic. They didn't need to have Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson voice him-- they could've, and should've, gone for a much cheaper industry voice actor. Similarly there's potential in keeping Skyquake around-- have him and Soundwave strike up an alliance as they bide their time waiting for Megatron to make his return. If they wanted to teach the audience "what it means to be a Prime" they should've had the memory loss stick, at least up until the end of the series, so that we learn that lesson alongside Orion. Also please for the love of god don't do Unicron as the final obstacle of Season 1. You throw him out that early, there's nowhere to go with the threat level but down.

There's more I could talk about, like the Predacon subplot failing to go anywhere even in Predacons rising or Arcee never seeing any meaningful character development throughout the entire show or the showrunners just throwing up their hands when it came to what to do with Airachnid and dumping her on an asteroid as a vampire, but I've covered what I think would be the major issues to tackle.

 

What's hilarious is that's exactly what they did the one time CJ had to come back for the flashback episode. They simply wanted to use Dwayne's name on the advertising for the premiere to attract attention is my guess.

Skyquake I have problems with the execution of, namely why is he even on Earth and Megatron didn't wake up a guy he thought could take on Prime, but actually killing him isn't one since they bring in Dreadwing as an obvious recolor but he's around wanting answers about his brother's death. Killing bad guys right after introducing them was a big problem for the show but Skyquake really is the only one that actually had repercussions for the Autobots (unfortunately, those repercussions ended up helping them out in the end because that's just how the show operated).

The fact they outright said they would explore "what it means to be a Prime" and then at the precipice of actually doing an interesting story of Pax struggling to be the man he was, trying to understand who Optimus Prime is without the literal thousands of years of experience to become him...they just give him his memory back and he's boring again? Really underscores that the writing just was not as planned out as they kept insisting it was.

And Unicron at the end of S1 probably could have been a neat move provided he remained an active threat in the background, ala Megatron as a head in Animated S1. But no, he's sealed away and absolutely nothing matters until Predacons Rising, where he's just walking around as Not-Galvatron before failing to notice the AllSpark chamber does not have the AllSpark in it.

The budget cuts got really severe in the third season, since Predaking's true reason for not transforming initially was they couldn't afford to make the robot mode model in time. Same with Airachnid, she actually was supposed to be in Predacons Rising leading the zombiecons but so they wouldn't have to pay her VA or even animate her, she's just abandoned in Thirst and never mentioned again.

 

A lot of Megatron's decisions seem a lot more explainable when you stop and consider that he is functionally high on cocaine at all times. Was that what the creators were going for? Absolutely not, they clearly wanted him to be a villain you took seriously. Will I run with it anyways? Yes, and they can't stop me!

 

The three years he spent in space 'looking for dark energon'...

It wasn't dark energon. What he was really looking for...is about as pure white as it gets.

 

Swap out the three kids for three more Autobots, killing two birds with one stone -- remove some of the most annoying characters while expanding the ranks of the Autobots, making it slightly less ridiculous that the Decepticons, with their greater numbers and hardware and air superiority etc., never manage to crush Optimus Prime's merry little band (and we do mean "little").

Adding more Autobots would also enable them to rely less on plot armor to get through three seasons' worth of show.

 

We're their problems with this show? Yeah, i wish they added stuff, or continue. But i enjoy this show, it's one of my favorite TF shows, and i was too harsh on it. Plus, this along with Rescue Bots, and..maybe RID is the last good tf show I've seen. Cyberverse does not interest me, and Siege...Fuck siege.

 

I was put off from watching Transformers prime again, but i went back and gave it a rewatch. i think this is still one of the best TF shows, and my favorite. I really do love Megatron and Optimus in this show, and i think Frank Welker, and Peter Cullen did a good job reprising their roles.

I honestly don't mind Prime being stoic, i mean, that's to be expected when you've been in a war that has said to take place like, how many years(?), it can do a lot to you, and bottling up your emotions is to be expected, i love the Autobots, they have character, and the interactions they have with their human friends is very charming, and the reason i love the human element of these shows, when it doesn't put too much focus on the humans. Jack, Raf, Fowler, and yes even Miko are likeable, and i will miss them.


Now..let's talk about some stuff i had problems with. I felt this show was playing it too safe. Like, for example. Optimus losing his memories, but he gets it back way too quickly was wasted, along with Breakdown showing more of a soft side, Dreadwing dying, nemesis prime, MECH, uhh the star saber. There's a lot that i felt they could have done, maybe had the show last longer.

The Predacons being teased, but got destroyed just before we got them, was i felt the definition of cock-teased. we got two new ones in the movie, but..too little too late.

Rambling again lol, but uh, i love Prime, but i can't ignore the problems it has.

i give it a..8/10

 

Same. I really love it as well, but it’s still pretty flawed, I still think that they could’ve expanded on a few things such as smokescreen becoming a prime, dreadwing defecting to the autobots, what happened to airachnid, and arcee sparing airachnid (as someone who actually likes prime arcee, that made no sense at all) but I still like it a lot. It’s surprising how good it was IMO ( don’t write an entire 12 page essay why I’m wrong) even with the extremely painful behind the scenes drama.

 

I love Prime, but it is definitely not without its flaws. Had I not grown up with it, I doubt I would like it as much as I do.

 

That is pretty much the DuckTales reboot in a nutshell.

The show continually putting Optimus on a pedestal and treating him as if he could do no wrong was one of its biggest problems, no doubt.

I personally would have had Optimus be younger and just starting his tenure as Autobot Leader at the beginning of the show.

While I don't mind a more badass Wheeljack, I think one of the critical reasons why Prime Wheeljack fails to leave much of an impact is because his character is just another "badass action hero" Autobot with nothing else under his belt.

Look at most of Optimus' team.

Bumblebee? Super-competent ass-kicking boy scout, who eventually becomes leader due to (stupid) so-called popularity.

Bulkhead? Big clobbering guy who actually enjoys fights, compared to his more gentler predecessor.

Ratchet? Wants to cause as much pain to the Decepticons as possible.

Optimus? Willing to kill any unnamed Vehicon who gets in his way, yet is unable to kill off Megatron due to the show wanting to make Optimus "look good".

Arcee? Violent, vengeful soldier.

Wheeljack? He's basically Arcee 2.0.

More frustratingly, the only Autobots with a potential for meaningful character arcs, Smokescreen and Ultra Magnus, are pretty much overlooked by the show and have their logical end goals for their character arcs nullified (neither of them get the new leadership position despite having earned it far more than Bumblebee has).

 

Ducktales and the She-Ra reboot are completely different but this thread is not the place to discuss it, nor do I have any actual interest in it because I can already tell what rabbit hole that would turn into.

 

Completely understandable. I was just taking the chance to vent some frustrations about the writing in some modern screen media.

 

The utter state of current Transformers media these days has caused me to seriously re-evaluate my opinion of Prime.

I think Prime wasted a lot of good will and potential, and was definitely badly mis-managed. This is well-documented in the fact that the show wanted to do its own thing instead of adhere to the continuity it was meant to be a part of, almost spitefully. It also had a lot of redundant, confusing, and unsatisfying plot points. The lack of budget needed to sustain its celebrity voice cast, the rigid adherence to status quo, and its limiting CGI nature made the show feel very surface-level. Characters didn't have much depth, they were very outright in their traits, and it constantly felt like the show was avoiding nuance in favour of being very blatant, as if it didn't trust the audience to understand anything subtle. Characters often reverted to similar voices whenever anything important happened, and it was just really dismissive in terms of new ideas.

Yet at the same time, it was clearly a quality product, or at least tried its hardest to be. The CGI robbed the show of life and variety, but it was pretty. The celebrity voices were ultimately a waste, but with a few notable exceptions the voice acting was fantastic because it had a lot of seasoned actors. Only poor direction/writing really held them back, and in a vacuum it produced a lot of great, small moments. It also tried really hard to make its own version of characters. Nobody, except for possibly Optimus and Bumblebee, just felt like "another X interpretation." New and revamped characters felt like they had a strong presence, compared to something like Cyberverse where everyone just feels like a generic, synergized version of a previous character without a distinct voice or identity. It also really cared about making an "epic" story. It, IMO, failed, but it tried really damn hard, and TBH it's not easy to make "epic" moments that feel epic. There's merit to the pretty images, dramatic dialogue, and grandiose scale even if I don't like it.

I don't think I'll ever like Prime, but I don't think I can hate it. It simply had too much effort and ambition, and compared to something like Cyberverse or Netflix, it feels lightyears ahead. The mere fact that it squandered potential means it at least had potential to start, which is more than I can say for those other two which are just cheap, empty corporate dreck. Prime garners a complex set of emotions from me, whereas everything since it has been a complete flatline.