Yeah, it'd be easy to jab Beast Within, the movies, later IDW comics, or Energon, but what's the worst story arc? Rather it be cartoons, comics, the movies, etc.

• Hoist goes to Hollywood was a bit of an whack episode. One of the weakest spotlight episodes to me. G1 has alot of just uninteresting episodes.
• Some of the episodes in Transformers Animated, notably when their fighting the human characters, feel like rejected Ben 10 plot premises and characters.
• Prime had some filler episodes, like the clip shows, and the whole rivalry between Arcee and Airachnid, which wasn't even properly ended. Plus if you swap Tailgate out, nothing would change.
• Some of the IDW comics have filler moments. Like Infiltration was 3 issues (0-2#) of a nonstop chase consisting of Ratchet giving exposition dumps. Still a good series. The 2009 series was a little weak and RiD (and Optimus Prime) and MTMTE (And Lost Light) were hit or miss in terms of writing.
• The earlier 2019 run of Transformers was bad, due to exposition dumps and feeling like the writer was afraid people won't know what Transformers are. Which actually made me drop the comic.

 

Filler episodes and... episodic episodes are by definition not a story arc. I'm assuming you just mean worst stories?

 

The Dreamwave armada comic. It felt Aimless and Just like the Marvel G2 comics. But suprisingly their Energon comics were 10x better.

 

Kiss Players

 

Well, I would have to say most of Headmasters and TFP's stories were pretty weak, same with the Prime Wars trilogy.

Although I did enjoy MTMTE and some of its characters, there were also some that just didn't sit right with me at all (Rodimus in particular I felt wasn't that compelling, especially compared to the Marvel G1 and the G1 cartoon version).

Also, Sixknight's debut episode in Masterforce. Then again, Sixknight is pretty much a shit character, so of course he is gonna drag down an episode with his mere presence.

 

I second this.

Headmasters was bad in terms of lacking interesting characters; I really, really hate Headmasters Chromedome. I haven't seen the Prime Wars Trilogy yet, but the clips I've seen are pretty bad, in terms of plot, voice acting (or, more specifically, Menasor's voice actor), and character work.

And, of course:
*Insert obligatory complaints about Energon here* Even as a kid, I was bored by that show.

 

It would be easy to say all the Bay-directed live-action films but I'll single out Revenge of the Fallen and The Last Knight.

 

Bumblebee movie. It was pretty much a mash up of an outsider teenage girl movie with ET.

 

Age of Extinction. The amount of logic-breaking plot holes that film had is ridiculous.

 

I've heard the Japanese Superlink version makes a bit more sense, but yeah, Energon was just a whack job.

In fact, I honestly prefer the Dreamwave comics of both Armada and Energon over the dubbed TV shows.

 

Autobot Megatron.

 

Damn! Coming in here just to say that!

Oddly enough, MTMTE/LL Rodimus is my favorite version of the character.

Thread Tax: Beast Wars Uprising, I hated almost everything about it.

 

Not a plot or a story arc but from the other live-action films that’s worth mentioning; Megatron getting a pep talk from a girl he’s never met in DOTM and stopping AOE to explain why it’s legally OK to bang a 17-year old in the state of Texas.

 

Yeah, well, I didn't like him at all. He just struck me as too much of a jerk most of the time.

LOL, honestly, when Carly said the words "Sentinel's bitch", I really thought the word bitch was a perfect way to describe Megatron in those movies. In the first one, he was the main threat, but in the other ones, he is constantly licking the boots of others (The Fallen in ROTF and Sentinel in DOTM).

 

I'ma go on the record and state KP isn't that bad if you can get over the kneejerk reaction towards the art and lewd nature which is more amusing than anything else. The plot later on is more reminiscent of an early version of the brilliant Legends Manga we've been getting. Wacky, outlandish plots with various cameos.

And if your response to this is gonna be moral grandstanding or weirdly racist diatribes against Japan, just save yourself the trouble and don't bother.

Tacitly supporting the CCP < A scene that literally lasts like 20 seconds or less that most normal people forget about.

Priorities? Also why does no one whine THIS Much about the stuff with Megan Fox when she was meant to be a teenager in the first movie? It's literally the same thing, the actress was an adult and playing a teenage character. It almost feels like some of the folks who watched AOE didn't realize she was acting and playing a character.

This may be why fans of Transformers movies have a bad reputation among the general public in fandom circles, because they'll miss much larger (and far more egregious) issues and get stuck up on one little detail that doesn't really matter all that much.

 

As a kid, I found the premise of "I, Robot Master" quite infuriating; the idea of the public believing the Decepticons to be puppets of some goofy looking pseudo-supervillain seemed like such an insult. Of course, now I find it absolutely hilarious.

 

The Prime Wars trilogy.

Unlike Prime Wars, at least most of the examples of "worst" stories or arcs in this thread actually build over time, or they aren't actual arcs, but scenes or brief events. They at least established their premises. With Prime Wars, I didn't get that even.

Personally, I think "filler" episodes can have stories just as enjoyable, and sometimes better, as multiple-episode/issue/movie arcs.

In fact, I actually enjoy many "filler" episodes, because it can be nice to change the pace every once in a while. Not every cartoon episode has to push forward the greater narrative of the series.

 

Energon
Combiner wars
Titans return
Autobots fighting humans in animated
The clipshow episode in prime
Kiss players
The bayverse

 

Anything for kids. Especially The live action universe.

 

I kind of stopped watching the movies after it so I don’t know if it was ever surpassed in terms of being terrible but revenge of the fallen was one of the worst movies I have seen ever. The twins that got accused of racism kind of give it a soo bad that it’s funny side but the film is so long and boring that it stops it from being one of those so bad that it’s comedy genius films.

I can’t believe I actually managed to sit through the whole of Japanese headmasters as it was joyless, boring, repetitive and never seemed to end. I for reasons I should probably see a therapist about was sticking with it to see if it got interesting only to be repeatedly disappointed.

Any idw comic’s written be their worst writer barber. He tried so hard to respond to criticisms of being dull by adding light hearted humour only for it to somehow make it feel even more joyless and bland. He was supposedly hailed as some kind of master of continuity and writer of serious grown up stories about politics but he seemed to know and have very little to say about politics and most of his story telling was really unambitious with many of his twists and retcons only serving to confuse and make less interesting other stories. Genuine master of continuity stuff would be weaving together ten years of comics and several realities into a complicated time travel storyline that wasn’t a plot hole filled mess. I know Im probably sounding a little overly harsh on him but I have a right to be bitter as I wasted a lot of money on his depressing comics and his bland and anticlimactic take on Unicron was the final straw.