The Energon Pub

Gauntlet101010 wrote:Ratchet and Lockdown really crib from Animated. If you're gonna crib, may as well crib from the greats! Although it's really watered down and rushed. Can't do much with three minute toy commercials.

Yeah, Cyber Missions was made to advertise the toys of the N.E.S.T. Global Alliance subline of the Revenge of the Fallen toyline and the 2010 "Transformers" toyline before it became Reveal the Shield (plus the Power Core Combiners line in the sole case of Smolder and Chopster).

The Deluxe ROTF Lockdown and Ratchet toys were designed to be able to share the same weapon accessory, in a direct homage to their relationship in Animated.






Hasbro did this Animated homage with these toys because of how they were right at the beginning of their Aligned mentality, when they wanted lore consistency across the board.

Before TF: Prime came out and did all that it did to establish its own identity, Hasbro originally wanted the 2007 movie to be the cornerstone of the lore written in the Binder of Revelation and have every new major TF media going forward revolve around that movie's story, aesthetic consistency be darned. This is why the Prime cartoon never told its own story of how the Transformers first came to Earth, as Hasbro wanted the 2007 movie to be the definitive version of that story, with Prime being set three years later.

Of course, while Prime was similar in tone and feel to the first movie, it made zero efforts to line up with the exact events of either that movie or ROTF, which was still good enough for Hasbro since all they cared about was everything passing a "squint test". But, that isn't to say that the live-action movies are also a part of Aligned, no, that was immediately abandoned once Prime took off and did its own thing separately from the movies. And there was no way Hasbro could have even controlled the stories crafted by Paramount for the sequel films.

Gauntlet101010 wrote:"Give me your face" Optimus shows Megatron mercy twice! But I guess the war can't end decicively in a friggin' 3 minute webtoon!

At the time these came out, Cyber Missions was meant to be a bridge between ROTF and DOTM, so they needed to have Megatron survive so he could go into hiding, lining up with his appearance in DOTM. It also happened to line up with the tie-in comics published by IDW that expanded the universe of the live-action movies (that is, until AOE came out and said "Nah, only the movies matter, forget all those comics and other tie-in stuff").

Gauntlet101010 wrote:I'm not kidding about evil Protectobots. I'd be down. But I wouldn't want them as reskins of the G1s either. I would want a better version of THIS Smolder, just like I like movie 1 Baricade. Reskinned Prowl will not do.

A route patrol with four Cons in stasis
Years later awoke in the strangest of places
Earth was their home now and in addition
Lord Megatron gave them this mission

Conquer the humans, punish, enslave
Scour their world for what we crave
Retrieving the AllSpark is your objective
Use whatever means prove most effective

Rescue Cons, rise to the rescue!
Power we need, AllSpark indeed!
Rescue Cons, rise to the rescue!
Rescue Cons

While Sector Seven chases 'Bots in Disguise,
Rescue Cons have their eyes on the prize!
Rescue Cons, rise to the rescue!
Rescue Cons!

Gauntlet101010 wrote:No pretense is made about Bee'not havign a voice. I guess that's the budget you get.

And it is radio-speaking Movie Bee, after all.

Gauntlet101010 wrote:Cyber Missions. It's bad. But watch the Smolder one (9).

Now what's next? Hopefully, something good.

Gauntlet101010 wrote:(checks notes) Cyberverse. So, a proper show. No idea how good it is. I think I watched the first episode when it first came out, but remember none of it.

A few words of warning that are helpful before going into Cyberverse.

Season 1 is very different from the later seasons. It suffered from mandates the most, forcing it to include elements that matched with the contemporary Bumblebee movie, such as Bee not only having a radio voice but also amnesia. This led to the first season having an anthology style format with lots of mental flashbacks that told the backstory of this world in a not-so-chronological order. This put many viewers off the show, but most who stuck with it agree that the first season improves dramatically around Episode 10.

By the start of Season 2, however, all of these hindering elements were discarded for the better, which allowed for more straightforward storytelling.

There is a major time skip between Seasons 1 and 2, which felt really jarring upon first viewing without knowing beforehand. The video game Transformers: Battlegrounds serves to pick up right where Season 1's finale left off, but that game was made without knowing what Season 2 was going to be like, so while it attempted to fill in that gap between the two, it ultimately doesn't fit with the rest of the show after Season 1 and can instead be considered more of a "what if" alternate take on the world of Cyberverse post-Season 1.

Season 2's proper finale is actually the first four episodes of Season 3. For some reason, a decision was made to hold off on resolving Season 2's season-long story until the start of Season 3, leaving Season 2 ending on a more ordinary episode without proper resolution until Season 3's opening four-parter. Thus, there is another time skip between Season 3's fourth and fifth episodes, but it's not as severe as the time skip between Season 1 and 2.

Gauntlet101010 wrote:We have more for a team of Rescue Cons! Barricade, Smolder, Flatline, and Scrapper ... we need a Blades either way, though.

Heatwave: PCC Smolder
Chase: Movie Barricade
Blades: 2010 Tailwhip
Boulder: PCC Steamhammer

(I went with all Movieverse Decepticons for further irony since the Movie 'Cons are some of the most vicious and monstrous Decepticons )