Deathsanras wrote:Ignoring for a moment that they were collecting random tchotchkes throughout season 1 (the Immobilizer, the Synth-En recipe),
The Immobilizer was not an Iacon Relic. It was in the Harbinger, which was a crashed Decepticon ship unrelated to the other relics.
The Data Cylinder wasn't an Iacon Relic either. Unlike those, it was launched for a simialr reaso nto the AllSpark: to keep it away from the Cons. While the relics were intended to come to Earth, the fact that the Data Cylinder wound up on Earth was pure coincidence.
Deathsanras wrote:season 2's objective was "decode the data", then it was "collect the relics". When they got done with that, it was "collect the more relics". When they found the last one of those, it was then "collect the even-more relics".
That's all one objective: "Locate the relics" covers the entirety of what you've just described since the decoding, the searching, the finding, the fighting, and the collecting are all mere steps in the same process.
Deathsanras wrote:And what did they do with them? Stored them in mylar in the back room somewhere, instead of breaking them out at appropriate opportunities in order to reasonably dispose of the formerly viciously unstoppable Insecticons (instead of having those Insecticons become minor ants), and to attempt to end the war once and for all.
Overkill is not the Autobots' style.
Deathsanras wrote:I see you chose to ignore an important aspect of the second part - I said they died or their storylines were summarily neutered. Breakdown dies, but more importantly, his death goes nowhere and has no meaning and very little flow-on effect, aside from one or two snarky comments from Knock Out.
Like i said, Breakdown wasn't a favorite of mine anyway, but yeah, he was wasted.
Deathsanras wrote:Silas kills the entire "third faction", then wears a robot tuxedo for one episode then dies, accomplishing nothing.
I get the feeling MECH was written out like that due to exectuive meddling in favor of switching to the Beast hunters theme for season 3. Then again, MECH rarely felt that interesting to me outside of a small handful of episodes.
Deathsanras wrote:Dreadwing dies simply because his voice actor's contract ended; he was more valuable and more loyal than Starscream, but Megatron chooses the conniving snake over the loyal follower.
Starscream learned his lesson, while Dreadwing openly defied his master after two warnings and a speech about how the Cons must be united. Plus, Dreadwing had nothing but a string of failures in his term under Megatron, while Starscream did much more than him in spite of his shaky loyalties.
Deathsanras wrote:Starscream goes rogue, is little more than a nuisance and not really any real "fourth faction",
What did you expect from a guy with nothing to his claim running away on the spur of the moment with few resources to call his own? Starscream was extremely reckless and careless running off like he did. Megatron was right is saying that no one forced him to leave the Cons. The fact that Starscream lasted as long as he did by himself was nothing short of luck.
Deathsanras wrote:accomplishes very little aside from being grounded,
1. He got away with the Apex Armor, which he held onto for a time
2. He got away with the Red Energon despite having lost the armor
3. He got the third Omega Key by himself
4. He outsmarted the Autobots enough to sneak into their base and steal all four Omega Keys (that alone is a huge feat)
Okay, so it isn't a lot in quantity, but that last one overrides quantity with quality by a landslide.
Deathsanras wrote:is largely helpless most of the time (calling on Autobots for help
Exploiting their willingness to help those in need, which came to be a great advantage when he later tricked them into leavign their base so he could steal the Omega Keys.
Deathsanras wrote:and trying to form ill-fated alliances in order to survive),
That alone is in his nature. He's
Starscream, for crying out loud.
Deathsanras wrote:then comes crawling back for no reason other than to accomplish a season 3 reset.
More like to regain the seat of power he once had before he left. He came face to face with the reality that, on his own, he lacks the resources and power granted to those in good favor with Megatron, so he swallowed his pride and went back to set things right with his former master. That was very mature of him, rather than continue to fool himself that he could get anywhere as far on his own as he could by going back to work for Megatron.
Deathsanras wrote:Bumblebee gets 2 episodes and disappears into the background.
Where he already was to begin with.
Plus, Bumblebee
not hogging the spotlight in a series airing during the time when his toys are constantly clogging the shelves? The horror!
Deathsanras wrote:Bulkhead's injury is little more than an inconvenience for a couple of weeks rather than the debilitating life-changing never-be-the-same injury we were lead to believe.
Truth, but, agina, I b;lame this to executive meddling.
Deathsanras wrote:Even Arcee, arguably the break-out star of the show, did precious little, aside from Out of the Past - which was a flashback, not even current events. Yeah, she chased Airachnid a few times, almost always in the same manner with the same outcome.
What, did her interactions with Smokescreen not matter?
Plus, her rivalry with Airachnid got old after a while ,so I wasn't upset to see it ease off.
Deathsanras wrote:Ratchet spent his days house-sitting.
Like normal.
Deathsanras wrote:Even the kids disappeared for episode after episode, and they were supposedly their "partners".
Children being kept out of the fights and safe from harm's way for a good while so we can focus on the Bots more and learn more about their lore? That's just crazy talk.
Deathsanras wrote:All the while, Optimus Prime stood there like a brick.
Only after his Orion Pax tenure. The rest of the time was like normal for him.
Deathsanras wrote:And everything that _was_ accomplished was fast-tracked and achieved hastily and without a real explanation or justification.
Example?
Deathsanras wrote:So, what more have we learned about "what it means to be a Prime"?
That you can get their powers by slicing off one of their arms from their dead body and attaching it to yourself in place of your own arm.
Deathsanras wrote:Prime season 2 was like Energon-levels of dismissive character and plot abandonment and pointless gimmick padding. Disappointing.
How can there be "plot abandonment" and "pointless gimmick padding" when the fun, gimmicky MacGuffin hunts
were the plot itself? How can one pad a plot with plotworthiness?
