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Summary of Transformers Prime episode #1: "Darkness Rising" Part 1

Transformers News: Summary of Transformers Prime episode #1: "Darkness Rising" Part 1

Monday, November 22nd, 2010 4:18PM CST

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This is a Seibertron.com World Premiere Exclusive! You read it here 1st!

Earlier today, Seibertron.com received an advance copy from The Hub of the first two episodes of "Transformers Prime" for screen purposes. I am in the middle of doing the summary for the second episode as well as putting together my review for these episodes. I will be posting my actual review later today after the episode summaries. My one line review in the meantime ... "'Transformers Prime' is the darker toned love child of Beast Wars and the live action Transformers films without the cheesy humor." Stay tuned for more! In the meantime, here's our detailed summary of the first episode of Transformers Prime (after the spoiler space below). DO NOT CONTINUE UNLESS YOU WANT TO READ SPOILERS!

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"Transformers Prime" - Part 1 of "Darkness Rising" (premiere: Friday, November 26, 4 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.) Optimus Prime and the Autobots investigate the return of the Decepticons while forced to account for a group of young humans who have unwittingly become involved in their centuries-old conflict.

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TRANSFORMERS PRIME EPISODE #1 SUMMARY
"DARKNESS RISING" PART 1
Running Time: 21:54 minutes

We start out with Cliffjumper and Arcee chatting over an intercom while cruising different landscapes, patrolling for Energon. Cliffjumper soon picks up a signal and finds a pit of Energon. He is quickly attacked by Decepticons. About a half dozen drones get ready to attack him.

Breaks to opening credits. No theme song. Just the primary "Transformers Prime" logo. Developed for television by Alex Kurtzman & Roberto Orci and Duane Capizzi & Jeff Kline. Kurtzman, Orci, and Kline are all listed as Executive Producers as well. This intro makes the intro to Scrubs look long.

Back to the action, Cliffjumper attacks the Decepticons. Scene jumps to Optimus Prime in vehicle form receiving a message from Arcee. Optimus contacts the other Autobots to head to Cliffjumper's location for backup. Cliffjumper's battle with the Decepticon Drones doesn't last long. After an Energon explosion, the Drones take the fallen Cliffjumper aboard their ship where Starscream awaits. Cliffjumper and Starscream share some brief dialogue before Starscream kills Cliffjumper by stabbing him through the left side of his chest.



The Autobots arrive at the Energon field. They find one of Cliffjumper's horns that fell off during his battle. Ratchet's monitor of Autobot positions shows Cliffjumper's "life signal" go offline.

Onboard the Decepticon shuttle, Soundwave reports to Starscream. I initially thought Soundwave had a rather unique somewhat melodized computer voice, but after listening to it several times and catching some of what he says, it sounds like he's repeating back lines from Arcee. Starscream's line afterwards is about Arcee as well so I'm not sure if that was a highly computerized playback of Arcee's voice or Soundwave actually talking.

The Autobots have a round table discussion near the edge of a cliff with a beautiful sunset in the background. Optimus talks about not letting the loss of Cliffjumper to impair their judgement. He also mentions that they are the only Autobots on Earth, they owe it to Cybertron, to Humankind and to their fallen comrade. Arcee sulks off as she transforms and leaves to "protect humankind".

Meanwhile, at a burger joint in a city, we meet the 16 year old human teenager Jack who's working at the drive-thru. His day doesn't seem to be going well. Arcee is en route to the city with her hologram "Sadie". She notices two Decepticon drone "twins" in her rear view mirrors. Jack has a conversation with his mother on his cell phone when he sees Arcee in motorcycle form sitting in the parking lot outside of the restaurant. He's mocked by two girls after they hear him talking to the Arcee motorcycle, proclaiming his desire to own a bike like her.



The two Decepticon drones race toward Arcee and Jack. Given no choice, Arcee must take off with Jack as her passenger with the Decepticon Drones in hot pursuit. The street battle continues through the city. Arcee loses the Drones for a moment so she lets Jack off in an alley after telling him that she doesn't exist. As she leaves him, she sees the Drones again in her rear view mirror. One of the Drones turns to chase after Jack. Move over "slag", the new slang on Transformers Prime is first heard when Arcee says "Oh, scrap!" as she turns around to take on the Drones in order to save Jack who is running for the Drone down an alley. Arcee comes to his rescue, Jack hops on her motorcycle form, and the battle/chase takes to the highway.



Bumblebee soon comes to the rescue by attacking the Drones. Jack and Arcee end up at the end of an unfinished highway. Arcee leaps to the underpass we saw in the 1st Transformers Prime trailer. Another young boy, Raf, is at the bottom of the underpass playing with his remote control car. Raf asks Jack what's going on right. The Drones, having knocked out Bumblebee moments earlier back on the highway, transform and attack Arcee. They battle. The action's pretty good. The Drones take out Arcee with a fire blast to the head. Bumblebee then reappears as he jumps off the highway overpass. This is the scene we saw from the first teaser trailer.



The Drones almost get the best of Bumblebee until Raf shouts out for the Decepticons to leave Bumblebee alone. The Drones then turn their attention from Bumblebee to Jack and Raf. They run down a large sewer pipe until the Drone can't reach them. Bumblebee and Arcee seem to be getting the "scrap" kicked out of them until Bulkhead arrives. With the tide turned against the Decepticons, the Drones transform and retreat. One of the few bits of humor is shown here when Arcee asks Bulkhead what took him so long. Bulkhead replies "traffic". Subtle humor ... not over-the-top like Animated was.

The scene cuts to Arcee and Bumblebee back at Autobot base giving Optimus Prime a briefing on what happened. Optimus states that anyone seen as one of their allies will be at great risk.

Jack walks out of his high school, past a Japanese exchange student, a girl named Miko, who is drawing the "awesome" motorcycle parked in the high school's parking lot. Jack sees Raf. Bumblebee honks his horn, pulls up alongside the boys, and has Raf get in. Arcee takes off in pursuit of Jack. She talks to him about understanding the situation. Arcee tells him that his safety is why Optimus Prime has requested his presence. Miko makes her presence known as she overhears their conversation. Arcee takes both Jack and Miko back to Autobot base to meet with Optimus Prime. The arrival at the Autobot mountain base is fairly epic. You truly get a sense of how large their base is.

The music when Optimus Prime walks into the main room is very reminiscent of the music that played when he first appeared in the first live action Transformers film. He announces that they are "autonomous robots from the planet Cybertron, also known as Autobots". The scene feels very similar to when Optimus introduced himself to Sam Witwicky. Apparently Cybertron is uninhabitable because of the Autobot civil war against the Decepticons. We get to see a stylized flashback to war ravaged Cybertron. This scene looks similar to an animated comic book, but it seems appropriate since it's a flashback scene. Optimus states that he fought alongside one he might consider a "brother", but in war ideals can be corrupted, then Megatron lost his way (awesome screen shot right here of Megatron's head). Optimus tells the human teenagers that he fears Megatron's return is imminent.

Back at the Decepticon base, Starscream states that the transmissions emanating from deep space would be a waste of Energon to intercept unless Soundwave is certain of its source. Soundwave nods, so the Decepticons activate their space bridge to retrieve ... MEGATRON!

To be continued ...
Credit(s): The Hub

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Re: Summary of Transformers Prime episode #1: "Darkness Rising" Part 1 (1149582)
Posted by Badassimus Prime on November 22nd, 2010 @ 4:32pm CST
Very interesting! It looks like the show will have some dark elements to it. I wish I had the Hub on my dish service but I don't have the money to upgrade at the moment. I'll be missing out it seems.
Re: Summary of Transformers Prime episode #1: "Darkness Rising" Part 1 (1149586)
Posted by sabrigami on November 22nd, 2010 @ 4:40pm CST
wow, I wasn't expecting this to sound so good. Now I really really want to see it :-( Who knows when Canada will get it though. I'm am glad to hear that the show isn't going down the kiddy route either. Like I said, I''m really looking forward to this now :KREMZEEK:
Re: Summary of Transformers Prime episode #1: "Darkness Rising" Part 1 (1149592)
Posted by Rodimus2006 on November 22nd, 2010 @ 4:57pm CST
I will be watching this I have the Hub Channel so I will be watching both GI Joe & TF I usually watch each new series when they debut have sense Generation 1 back in 85

I am now 29 and I still love my Transformers this is a continued tradition for me and this is the 9th Transformers series to be debuted in North America.

I dont count Headmasters as it was a 3 prt special that never was finished in N/A and none of the other series have made it over here such as Super God Master Force or Victory and Beast Wars II & Neo.

Generation 2 was mostly comics and a toyline I do think they were some episodes of Generation 2 but that was a long time ago.

Prime looks awesome I really didnt think CJ would be killed off so quickly maybe he can be brought back somehow remember the Element Megatron is hunting for has to do with Life maybe similar towards the All-Spark.

So maybe in a future episode they use this Element to re-activate CJ.

I love this Opening Pilot a lot darker more action and less humor I am already loving it.

I cant wait to see Megatron in Action and see how evil he truly his he was sort of wussified in Animated I hope he is more ruthless like he was in TF-Cybertron.
Re: Summary of Transformers Prime episode #1: "Darkness Rising" Part 1 (1149597)
Posted by SlyTF1 on November 22nd, 2010 @ 5:08pm CST
Man, wish I got that channel. I hated how it looked a few weeks ago, but now it sounds awesome! But, my friend has dish network and maybe I can watch it at his house.
Re: Summary of Transformers Prime episode #1: "Darkness Rising" Part 1 (1149602)
Posted by Blurrz on November 22nd, 2010 @ 5:17pm CST
sabrigami wrote:wow, I wasn't expecting this to sound so good. Now I really really want to see it :-( Who knows when Canada will get it though. I'm am glad to hear that the show isn't going down the kiddy route either. Like I said, I''m really looking forward to this now :KREMZEEK:


We'll be either ahead or behind 1 week.. something like that.
Re: Summary of Transformers Prime episode #1: "Darkness Rising" Part 1 (1149605)
Posted by Ungie on November 22nd, 2010 @ 5:20pm CST
Can somebody clear up if TF:Prime is only a 5 part miniseries or a full fledged show? I was set on it was a full series show but after the promos Im lost...
Re: Summary of Transformers Prime episode #1: "Darkness Rising" Part 1 (1149612)
Posted by chuckdawg1999 on November 22nd, 2010 @ 5:37pm CST
Ok. I gotta ask. At any point does Cliffjumper drop any classic "Rock" isms? Lay the smackdown? Smell what he's cookin' etc.?
Re: Summary of Transformers Prime episode #1: "Darkness Rising" Part 1 (1149614)
Posted by ashe5k on November 22nd, 2010 @ 5:45pm CST
Cliffjumper dies. For real? And we keep Bulkhead? Ugh. Way to kill my interest.

The rest of the episode sounds good but I think the intro scene is terrible. What a waste of a character. But I guess that's to be expected from the writing team that wasted Jazz and Sideways entirely as well.

I'll give the show a chance, but the way they were hyping him and what with the somewhat famous voice actor I'd hoped he'd be in it more. It's been too long since I'd seen him get any screen time.
Re: Summary of Transformers Prime episode #1: "Darkness Rising" Part 1 (1149619)
Posted by Seibertron on November 22nd, 2010 @ 5:51pm CST
ashe5k wrote:Cliffjumper dies. For real? And we keep Bulkhead? Ugh. Way to kill my interest.

The rest of the episode sounds good but I think the intro scene is terrible. What a waste of a character. But I guess that's to be expected from the writing team that wasted Jazz and Sideways entirely as well.

I'll give the show a chance, but the way they were hyping him and what with the somewhat famous voice actor I'd hoped he'd be in it more. It's been too long since I'd seen him get any screen time.


Wait until you hear what happens to poor ol' Cliffjumper's cadaver in the next episode. Let's just say ... Transformers meets 28 Days Later! I would be really surprised if they didn't find a way to bring Cliffjumper back by the end of Darkness Rising.
Re: Summary of Transformers Prime episode #1: "Darkness Rising" Part 1 (1149621)
Posted by Seibertron on November 22nd, 2010 @ 5:53pm CST
chuckdawg1999 wrote:Ok. I gotta ask. At any point does Cliffjumper drop any classic "Rock" isms? Lay the smackdown? Smell what he's cookin' etc.?


Not that I caught. It was pretty mainstream stuff. But I'm also not familiar with Wrestling so I probably wouldn't have caught any unless it was the two lines above.
Re: Summary of Transformers Prime episode #1: "Darkness Rising" Part 1 (1149625)
Posted by SlyTF1 on November 22nd, 2010 @ 6:03pm CST
Seibertron wrote:
ashe5k wrote:Cliffjumper dies. For real? And we keep Bulkhead? Ugh. Way to kill my interest.

The rest of the episode sounds good but I think the intro scene is terrible. What a waste of a character. But I guess that's to be expected from the writing team that wasted Jazz and Sideways entirely as well.

I'll give the show a chance, but the way they were hyping him and what with the somewhat famous voice actor I'd hoped he'd be in it more. It's been too long since I'd seen him get any screen time.


Wait until you hear what happens to poor ol' Cliffjumper's cadaver in the next episode. Let's just say ... Transformers meets 28 Days Later! I would be really surprised if they didn't find a way to bring Cliffjumper back by the end of Darkness Rising.


Oh, yeah! And I thought Animated looked horrible, then got good as soon as the opening! This looks like it may be better!
Re: Summary of Transformers Prime episode #1: "Darkness Rising" Part 1 (1149626)
Posted by Rodimus2006 on November 22nd, 2010 @ 6:04pm CST
People let me explain: Prime begins with Darkness Rising a 5prt. Opening Pilot.

Then the rest of the 21 episodes of season 1 to be shown later on.

There is a scheduled 65 episodes for Prime in total but could go beyond that if it does good.

According to my caculations Prime will be about 3 or 4 seasons long.

Each season will house about 21 or so episodes in each with mult-part episodes in them such as a season ender or a season opener as with Animated.

I repeat Darkness Rising is a PILOT, meaning the 1st episode later on Prime will show 21 episodes.

I repeat they are more episodes to come.
Re: Summary of Transformers Prime episode #1: "Darkness Rising" Part 1 (1149628)
Posted by ashe5k on November 22nd, 2010 @ 6:07pm CST
SlyTF1 wrote:
Seibertron wrote:
ashe5k wrote:Cliffjumper dies. For real? And we keep Bulkhead? Ugh. Way to kill my interest.

The rest of the episode sounds good but I think the intro scene is terrible. What a waste of a character. But I guess that's to be expected from the writing team that wasted Jazz and Sideways entirely as well.

I'll give the show a chance, but the way they were hyping him and what with the somewhat famous voice actor I'd hoped he'd be in it more. It's been too long since I'd seen him get any screen time.


Wait until you hear what happens to poor ol' Cliffjumper's cadaver in the next episode. Let's just say ... Transformers meets 28 Days Later! I would be really surprised if they didn't find a way to bring Cliffjumper back by the end of Darkness Rising.


Oh, yeah! And I thought Animated looked horrible, then got good as soon as the opening! This looks like it may be better!


Ugh. Yeah I found the expanded summary for episode 2 and then read your reply and my eyes began to roll. Do we really need Zombies in EVERYTHING now? I watch the Walking Dead, and had no plans to read Infestation. :P

I will give it a shot and I'll probably love the rest of the series, but I still think it's a waste if they don't bring him back.
Re: Summary of Transformers Prime episode #1: "Darkness Rising" Part 1 (1149648)
Posted by Megatron Wolf on November 22nd, 2010 @ 7:00pm CST
Meh, nothing i read here has changed my mind about watching it. I do have some questions though, is Soundwave a full fledged transformer or just a drone and has hasbro stated why they turned Chromia into Arcee? As of now ill only watch if they do the same thing they did in G1, not have the dumbass humans in every episode and they change the voice actor for Starscream.
Re: Summary of Transformers Prime episode #1: "Darkness Rising" Part 1 (1149728)
Posted by Vicalliose on November 23rd, 2010 @ 1:12am CST
Seeing this show getting a full 65 episode run just makes me more frustrated about Animated.

At first I thought it was because Paramount didn't want any attention drawn away from movie toys, then I thought it was because the show wasn't following the 'to sell toys' guideline very well, lately I've been thinking that it was just Warner Brothers deciding to throw away another of their good shows for no reason, and right now I'm thinking it was a combination of all three.

The first rule seems to apply considering that Hasbro stated that there were no plans to make a toyline for TF: Prime, however the second rule doesn't for the same reason. The third rule makes sense, because right now Cartoon Network seems like the same f**kwits who run Adult Swim are now running the entire channel.

Sorry, I realize this is an old issue, and I'm probably way off anyway. But I just needed to vent a little.


Anyway, I tried to avoid reading most of it but I couldn't help the temptation of reading the part about Cliffjumper dieing. Now, I haven't actually heard these interviews myself, mostly because I hate wrestlers who try to be actors (no matter who they are), but my brother has told me that Dwayne Johnson stated he didn't want to do as much kids stuff anymore and get back to being in action flicks. This is a possible reason for Cliffjumpers death, also the fact that he's a movie actor ergo he's more expensive.
Re: Summary of Transformers Prime episode #1: "Darkness Rising" Part 1 (1149811)
Posted by AutobotTrainer on November 23rd, 2010 @ 8:57am CST
Seibertron wrote:This is a Seibertron.com World Premiere Exclusive! You read it here 1st!


First, congrats on the exclusive! This is one of the many reasons why Siebertron.com is my preferred TF news source!

Second, I have Hub on BASIC CABLE in Iowa (gotta love ImOn Cable). I'll be watching with a fervor, along with my 3 year old son. I'm liking what I'm seeing so far!


:BOT:

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