This "final" installment dropped today on Netflix. Who has had time to watch the full 6 season episode set?
I found this re-imagining of Beast Wars so as to line up with G1 to be pretty good. Incorporating the Dead Universe and Unicron(in a small part) to allow Galvatron and Nemesis Prime was also an interesting twist. Of course since time travel is involved that allows for more, ahem, toys in the kit to play with.
It ends but it also teases more. I wonder if we will get more?
I was quite enjoying it for the first 4 episodes, but then unfortunately found myself losing interest watching the final two eps. I had enjoyed Siege and Earthrise as a love letter to G1, despite the legitimate criticisms from others and myself. I was totally ready to just sit back and enjoy the ride re-visiting Beast Wars with Kingdom, and I enjoyed it to an extent.
[spoil]My biggest issue was probably the Code Of Hero death scene re-hash about halfway into the series. It reminded me a whole lot of the Kirk death scene fakeout in Star Trek Into Darkness, paying tribute to Wrath of Kahn. Dinobot's death in Code Of hero is such an iconic scene in all of Transformers lore, especially because Dinobot earned that send-off after all the character development he went through. Both his exchange with Rattrap as well as Optimus' short words of eulogy are the cherry on top of a great character arc. Dinobot in 'Kingdom' did nothing to earn that, nor could he have in a series of 6 eps even if he hadn't been bumped off early. He and Rattrap share no scenes in this other than that final death scene, so the little exchange where they call each other chopper face and vermin is meaningless. I don't think the series needed to re-visit that particular scene, even if it is iconic. [/spoil]
On voice acting, just as with Hound and Ironhide, where the voice actors could have been switched to better match the G1 voices, I feel the same could have been done with Tigatron and Dinobot? Tigatron is given a somewhat scratchy, higher-pitched voice, Dinobot has this baritone with AA inflections-- I don't know who voiced him, but I feel like he could have paid great tribute to Blu Mankuma's originaly performance as Tigatron. Maybe Tigatron's actor in this didn't have the range to do Dinobot, and I do think that Dinobot's VA does fine with the material he's given and the conflict that Dinobot experiences, as well has portraying his warrior's pride just fine. Funnily enough, his Dinobot kind of reminds me of Scott McNeill's Piccolo in the DBZ Ocean Dub.
Optimus Primal ends up sounding fine. Rhinox and Rattrap are both passable. Cheetor seems to have gone in one ear, out the other. Maybe it's that Ian Corlett gave Cheetor such a youthful exuberance in the original that was missing in this version. Airazor and Blackarachnia were both fine. BA's VA put more of the cool, calculating aspect of BA rather than leaning into the playfulness in combat that Venus Terzo did so well with her gravelly voice.
[spoil]I appreciate that the relationship between the Beasties and the G1'ers is different from the original G1 timeline. The Maximals aren't gushing over the Autobots (even though that worked really well in the original Beast Wars) as apprently the course of the war and the removal of the Allspark from Cybertron altered cirucmstances so that instead of coming up in a time of peace, the Maxies and Preds had to come up in something of a dystopia, and the records on the Autobots and Decepticons seem to have mostly been lost to the sands of time. And of course, their timeline features OP being turned into Nemesis Prime. so of course his legacy would have been tarnished.[/spoil]
One peeve of mine was when Optimus Primal used the word 'maximize' to order his troops to transform into beast mode, and the Autobots commented that 'maximize' must mean 'transform' to them.. BW always made it clear that 'beast mode' was the phrase to enter said mode, while maximize/terrorize were used to announce the change to robot mode. A minor thing, but a little bit jarring.
[spoil]I wish we could have gotten Waspinator, Tarantulas, Terrorsaur, and even Inferno. I realize that would have been a lot of models to animate, but the Maximals gotten all their original crew including Dinobot, plus Tigatron and Airazor, and the Preds only got Megs, Scorpy, and BA of the originals and season one protoform recruits. That just feels a bit unbalanced.[/spoil]
Good stuff: again Airazor. I liked her a lot. It was fun to see her shine as much as she did in this.
I've mostly just spoken about little things that bother me, I think that's because most of the major plot threads with the intersection of the G1 bots and BW bots' affairs was interesting at first, then kinda fell into generic territory by episode 5.
[spoil]I did like the sequel hook and I hope it's not just a pointless teaser and will instead lead into like a movie special or something featuring the coming of Unicron and the big battle against him[/spoil]
Only watched the first 3 episodes so far...
Have to be honest, the voice acting is REALLY taking me out of the story, to the point I am not paying attention.
I know this is a completely different story/universe than my beloved 90's cartoon, but the voice differences are quite jarring. Poor, poor Megatron :(
To keep things positive, I have been enjoying how big a role Airazor has so far!
[spoil]So...just to get this out of the way, yeah we ended up with discount versions of the Beast Wars characters' voices. That really shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, but it is what it is. Some range from okay, to serviceable, to downright terrible. The best was probably Rattrap with the worst being BW!Megatron, with even the iconic "Yesss..." just sounding completely wrong and ill-befitting of the character. I'm tempted to think Tigatron and Dinobot should've switched voices, although Tigatron barely talked...I mean, this series has never been a high mark for voice acting, so I guess I'm glad I didn't set my expectations high.
It felt like this entire series was basically just a bunch of guilt-tripping Optimus Prime or watching him get beat up. How many times did we need to remind him how everything was his fault because he sent the Allspark away? And because of that he created a dystopian future for the Maximals and Predacons. Like it took until the very end for the Allspark and Elita-1 to finally tell him he made the right choice.
Another thing that annoyed the heck out of me was just this flip-flopping over whether Megatron was evil or not. Oh look at his noble intentions while he talks about wiping out Optimus Prime and the Autobots and how he's basically just doing it for ego at this point. And then it's all cool as Megatron and the Predacons just walk off into the sunset after trying to kill everybody for centuries because he finally got the memo...and then he implies eventually they'll probably fight again. Ugh.
I'm really kind of just tired of everybody in this show being all angry and stressed at each other every season, but at least it wasn't that long before the Maximals and the Autobots became allies.
"Optimus!" "What!?" and "Is that how he says transform?" were admittedly kind of funny.
This show really didn't do BW!Megatron justice, just turning him into a Megatron sycophant without much of a personality all to his own. Obviously part of it is no David Kaye but there's not much even he could've done with how he was written in this show. I did like how G1!Megatron obviously took issue with the name thing.
I liked that they acknowledged Airazor and Tigatron's relationship...and then Airazor ends up also being Blackarachnia's Silverbolt and getting a kiss on the cheek. Sure, why not?
Blackarachnia is still Blackarachnia with a dash of Tarantulas, knowing way more than she's telling but ultimately out for herself, to the point where she finally joins the Maximals to save her own skin...but it was nice to see her in that group shot.
Dinobot wanted to act honorably and decided to throw in with Dinobot and Starscream...yeah, he should've just joined the Maximals.
Could Starscream always turn invisible? And Mirage's transformations can put him at the actual height of who he's copying?
Why was Arcee's vision of Cog? Why did Cog get a statue? Was the Decepticon statue supposed to be Reflector?
Poor Sideswipe. Airazor just sees him as "The Red One." I did like how his vision was seeing Sunstreaker, although sadly we didn't get to see him.
Dinobot got his Code of Hero moment...not that it was as good as Code of Hero, but the intention was the same where he makes a heroic last stand and fights with honor to redeem himself and change the tide of the battle for the good guys. I'm glad he was able to get a moment with the Maximals before he died and express that a part of him always wanted to defect and join them like he's supposed to, and Primal would've accepted him despite him probably making a terrible Maximal, and they got in one Rattrap and Dinobot moment to boot.
I count one utterance of "Boss Bot."
I legitimately thought they had killed off Soundwave there for a second...but then we wouldn't have gotten Ravage versus Cheetor and Tigatron.
I...really don't understand what was the point of Prime giving Megatron the Matrix and having Megatron go into the Allspark temple with it (and apparently the Allspark is so important that it's temple just magically transports itself wherever it goes. Gotta stay classy).
I have to say I was surprised Starscream ended up going the Armada Starscream route of betraying Megatron because it was the right thing to do and Unicron was the more dangerous threat. Altogether I think Frank Todaro probably had the strongest performance in the entire series, capturing Starscream's conniving and ravings when he realizes the true danger quite well.
We were robbed of a sequence of the Ark fully transforming into giant robot form, and of an epic giant robot fight...although it must have been so satisfying for the Ark to just straight up punch the Nemesis.
I guess it's nice that the show brought things full circle with Optimus and Bumblebee...of course that's how the franchise usually goes these days. I do love how Bumblebee ended up being Prime's first choice to take over if he and everyone else died because why the heck not?
I did find it kind of ironic that an evil version of Megatron and Optimus Prime were able to work together compared to their past selves.
Well, at least we got an Optimus Prime versus Nemesis Prime fight.
Jeez, they really did the Cybertron Autobots dirty...and then they end up being Allspark ghosts that wipe out Galvatron and Nemesis Prime as a deus ex machina. And did I see Skywarp there? Was that supposed to be him?[/spoil]
^I am going to continue singing the praises to Todaro's voicing of Starscream. It's the most Latta-esque performance since Latta and it gives me genuine chills. There've been great interpretations of Starscream thruout TF history, like Animated or Prime, but they're different bots with different voices to match, and somehow always felt more Terrorsaur than Screamer to me. Todaro's got the pitch, the accent, the haughtiness down to a tee. Only thing missing was G1 Screamer's histrionics, but this just wasn't the show for that.
[QUOTE=Andru;5656455]Only watched the first 3 episodes so far...
Have to be honest, the voice acting is REALLY taking me out of the story, to the point I am not paying attention.
I know this is a completely different story/universe than my beloved 90's cartoon, but the voice differences are quite jarring. Poor, poor Megatron :(
[/QUOTE]
This! It's way too jarring for me. The VA from Beast Wars was a big part of it's charm/appeal for me. Especially Megatron.
The VA has always been the weakest part of the trilogy for me. The story was compelling enough to keep me engaged. There were enough standouts and fun takes that I might be coming around on that opinion.
The voice acting on this show is ass. Plain and simple.
Like...regularly if I say I am going to the store it'd be...
"Hey I'm going to the store right now"
In the WFC trilogy universe it'd be...
"Hey...I'm going...to....the STORE, right....now"
Like who directed that. On purpose?
Outside of seeing something new from transformers period, a few cool moments with the Beasts introduction, Dinobot, Airrazor, this has largely been disappointing series. To me anyway.
It’s not just the VA that’s off for the BW cast I feel like that is not Optimus Primal, he was way to aggressive and hot headed in that first appearance. BW Megatron would never be this subservient to OG Megatron either he would view himself as superior using his cunning to out do the Og. Remember he did conquer cybertron in BM. Not even getting into Dinobot…
I feel like there was an inkling to what could have been a truly amazing modern TF cartoon in there but they just kept shooting themselves in the foot on several levels.
[QUOTE=Andru;5656455]Only watched the first 3 episodes so far...
Have to be honest, the voice acting is REALLY taking me out of the story, to the point I am not paying attention.
I know this is a completely different story/universe than my beloved 90's cartoon, but the voice differences are quite jarring. Poor, poor Megatron :(
To keep things positive, I have been enjoying how big a role Airazor has so far![/QUOTE]
Optimus Prime, in particular, cracks me up.
"What's... the matter?"
"We... must ... STOP THEM!"
"All ... hands... brace ...for... *boom*"
At one point I just outright and literally LOL'd at the screen. I really need Optimus to speak with more regularity and less like an lazy asthmatic with any lack of urgency.
Also, I get that CGI is expensive and all, but I'm really tired of the characters transforming off screen, signaled only by the sound effect. Hell, the camera will be on them, then for a split second on the character they're talking to, then back to the first character, all to hide the transformation.
Plus:
[spoil]Bumblebee runs a great length with the all-spark but when it "dies," he apologies for being too late. Except y'know what would have helped? Transforming into car mode. Sweet jesus.[/spoil]
Also, the show uses the Earth's varied terrain to prevent the Autobots from transforming into cars. For mountains and cliffsides, sure that makes sense. But they're still surrounded by large fields and hills fit for a wagon, along with other flat terrain. C'mon now, that really shouldn't prevent them from using their alt modes at all on Earth. I think all we got from the Autobots was Hound and Prime.
[QUOTE=Cyke;5658872]Optimus Prime, in particular, cracks me up.
"What's... the matter?"
"We... must ... STOP THEM!"
"All ... hands... brace ...for... *boom*"
At one point I just outright and literally LOL'd at the screen. I really need Optimus to speak with more regularity and less like an lazy asthmatic with any lack of urgency.
Also, I get that CGI is expensive and all, but I'm really tired of the characters transforming off screen, signaled only by the sound effect. Hell, the camera will be on them, then for a split second on the character they're talking to, then back to the first character, all to hide the transformation.
Plus:
[spoil]Bumblebee runs a great length with the all-spark but when it "dies," he apologies for being too late. Except y'know what would have helped? Transforming into car mode. Sweet jesus.[/spoil]
Also, the show uses the Earth's varied terrain to prevent the Autobots from transforming into cars. For mountains and cliffsides, sure that makes sense. But they're still surrounded by large fields and hills fit for a wagon, along with other flat terrain. C'mon now, that really shouldn't prevent them from using their alt modes at all on Earth. I think all we got from the Autobots was Hound and Prime.[/QUOTE]
I at least appreciated that the BW cast used their Beast Modes more than the G1 cast used their vehicle modes even if sometimes they transformed off-screen.
[QUOTE=Frontier;5658470]I feel like there was an inkling to what could have been a truly amazing modern TF cartoon in there but they just kept shooting themselves in the foot on several levels.[/QUOTE]
I think that sums up this entire trilogy.
Toys were good though.