The Energon Pub

[ZeroWolf]

Don't mention it bronze you'll soon be free from this commitment

[Bronzewolf]

Tomorrow is the premier date for the final episode of Machinima's entire Prime Wars trilogy. It's been over two years since the premier of the first installment, and my first review of the series. The narrative is beginning to wrap up, but there;s still a lot of ground to cover before we get to the finale. Today we'll take a look at episode 8, Collision Course. It's definitely, uh, something. Let's take a more in depth look at why together, shall we?

(Note: The following review contains spoilers for Power of the Primes and the entire Prime Wars Trilogy)

The episode opens on the main cast, now consisting of Megatron, Windblade, Optimus Primal, Perceptor and Grimlock, inside a labyrinth on the way to the well of sparks, following the directions they received from the library of Primes. Grimlock asks, in this bottomless chasm of absolutely hilarious original comedy, if they're there yet. This wouldn't be too bad if he didn't make the same joke three separate times within a two minutes. It becomes so unlikable and unfunny, especially within that short of a time frame.


Congratulations, cartoon, you've made me dislike Grimlock.

Perceptor navigates them through the caves, and makes a comment about how if they make a wrong turn they'll be lost in the cavern for 45 Million years. Aside from the fact that, by definition, you can't calculate how long someone will be lost, I think they missed a big opportunity here:

Even with all the representation of Primus, Unicron, and the Primes in various Transformers shows and movies, we never really see what ruins and relics they left behind. This would have been a great chance to flesh the world this series has built out a bit by making the Primes a sort of Greek mythology equal. Perceptor hypes the danger of the labyrinth up so much, but in the next shot, they've discovered the well of sparks with no problem.

Instead of spending as much time in the swamp as this series did, I would have loved to have spent at least part of an episode inside this maze, with the cast dealing with whatever ancient monsters or traps might lay ahead. It would have expanded the mythos, been a cool direction for the show we haven't really seen before, and make Perceptor's hype worth while. It even had the potential to be genuinely scary. It's just sad to see that potential go to waste.


DANGER beyond your WILDEST NIGHTMARES await you. We don't have the budget to animate any of it, but TRUST US! It's there!

Like I said above, they make it to the well of sparks with little issue, but just before they make it there, Megatronus has already been successful in starting the process to bring Solus Prime back from the dead, sending out a pulse wave of energy that drains power from all cybertronians. Perceptor projects a feed of several Transformers being affected, as we get a shot of the Dinobots and Emissary, for potentially the last time.

The main cast powers through the wave and makes it to the well, just in time to catch Megatronus monologuing to the rapidly appearing form of Solus Prime. A weird thing in this scene is that the well is somehow protected from the pulse wave, as neither Megatronus or the main cast are affected as soon as they enter the chamber. It's strange that this occurs, especially since the wave originated from that room.


"So wondrous wild, the whole might seem..."

Megatron sends Windblade, Primal, and Grimlock to take down Megatronus, which they oddly do with ease, compared to the ruthless battles the two sides have had in the past. As Perceptor tries to shut down the system, Megatron catches Solus Prime up on what lengths Megatronus is going to to bring her back.

Megatronus has had enough, and throws Grimlock and Primal off of him. He traps them and Windblade in pillars of fire. He does the same for Perceptor as he walks back over to the well.

It's now just Megatron, standing alone against his name sake. Megatronus reveals, in quite a bit of hasty writing, that he has apparently been behind every major event that has happened in the entire trilogy. He made the Combiners fight one another so the enigma of combination would be brought out of it's case (although that seemed to be more of Windblade's decision if I remember correctly), and he was the one to kill Optimus Prime and extract the Matrix. Megatron tells him he can stop him because he's "Megatron. But just before the battle can begin, Rodimus enters the chamber, and evolves (for no particular reason other than "Because Unicron") into his full Rodimus Unicronus form. With that, the episode ends.


*Listens to Motorhead once*

Again, it would have been interesting to have the potential of the scene exploited a bit more, in this case to give Rodimus a genuine reason to evolve. Have Rodimus struggle with Megatronus and get thrown into the well of sparks, and have it power him up. It's just missed creative opportunities like this that drag the series down. The episode as a whole was more thrilling and engaging than the previous episode, although it lacked the cool, cinematic stills the last one had. We're getting close to the very end of this entire journey, and to see it all come together will be...interesting, to say the least.

Thanks for reading my review of episode 7! Getting remarkably close to the end now, and what a trip it's been. If you haven't seen the episode yet, you can find it on Go90. I encourage you to come back and share your thoughts in the Energon Pub forum! Was I correct? Was I totally off base? Please tell me what you thought! Thanks again! I'll see you tomorrow, where we'll have a double feature, with the review for Episode 9 in the morning, and then the review for the finale later on in the day.

*Motorhead joke stolen from Thew *

[Sarahthecutevixen]

missed creative opportunities is the show isnt it

[Sabrblade]

FINAL episode - https://www.go90.com/videos/01oNDK60OqY

CW's finale gave us "Screaming Star Starscream" at the 11th hour, TR's finale gave us "Trypticon just falls over" and "A wild Megatronus appears!" at the 11th hour, so let's see what kind of last minute random game changer this final episode of Potpie will give us from out of nowhere at the 11th hour.

[ShockBlade501]

Well now that that's over I can finally uninstall go90, and only a few weeks before it got discontinued too

[ZeroWolf]

I'm not expecting much of this finale really, another good review bronze, what are you going to do with yourself once this is done though? I suggest they make you sit down and watch all of g1 and review that in the same style *joking of course*

[Burn]

Oh FFS ... if the three series achieved anything it was to give us a post-war Megatron, one with snark and attitude.

And then they kill him.

And resurrect Optimus **** Prime.



Just stay dead for once!

[ZeroWolf]

I don't think they know how to keep him dead, that or there is someone high up at hasbro who gets the sweats when prime is dead in any one fiction for a length greater then a year...if that.

[Burn]

No one really cares about this fiction though! Within a year it will be long forgotten about and only spoken in whispers amongst small circles ... those circles which surround two people armed with knives arguing over truck or munkky!

[ZeroWolf]

I didn't say this individual was rational about it, they could easily be one of the children traumatised by primes death in the movie. I agree though, aside from "where they went wrong" retrospectives, I can't see this one standing the test of time. Though any fans of these three shows are welcome to like it

[Sabrblade]

"Those sparks will bring life to a new generation of Transformers."

The Axalon is seen at the end.

And Starscream's ghost looks like he's hoping to hitch himself a ride.


Don't tell me they threw in these bits to makes this show a sort of a gap-bridging series between G1 and the Beast Era.

[ZeroWolf]

But how would that even work...would it work, seems like a very lazy tie in and more of a problem considering what bw megs intially wanted to do.

[Sabrblade]

But how would that even work...

The same way that some people think this is meant to be in the same world as the G1 cartoon but years later: Very loosely with only the vaguest recollection of specific details taken into account rather than actually remembering how things were like in the old shows.

[o.supreme]

Well it's over. I know some people here don't like me ranting about the negatives, and how I shojldn't watch the show if I don't like it, so I promise this will be my last rant post (everyone else gets away with it ) but...

Good Grief...

yay Predaking! I'm glad we finally found out why he wanted the Enigma all this tome...oh wait..no we didn't....

Megatronus will forever be known as the "head popper-offer" of Combiners.

"You will suffer at the hands of Predaking!" (yay one of his lines, sort of, from FFOD pt 5)

So...All the bots that Megatronus killed are "gone forever", but Optimus Prime gets a mulligan because...? I'm almost certain the writers of this show would have wanted "The Touch" to work in there somewhere...but probably didn't want to pay Stan Bush to use it.

Megatron, also reminds us of some of his dialogue with Unicron from TF:TM. I guess the only good thing is, if there is any sort of media tie in for WFC (which there probably wont be), but at least it wont be with Machinima, despite that little stinger at the end.

Sabre- I also had thoughts about Machinima in a back handed way trying to make this an official gap between the original series and BW, but Optimal Optimus is there, so that would be really, really bad writing. In my *head canon*, if the original animated series had gone on, I always figured it would have been the nucleon/action master process that would have turned Galvatron back into Megatron, but then how they ever got the ability to transform back would also have to be explained at some point.

well... all I have to say is

*In a post credits scene, Fort Max is in a far off corner of the planet crying because everyone forgot about him.*

[ZeroWolf]

But how would that even work...

The same way that some people think this is meant to be in the same world as the G1 cartoon but years later: Very loosely with only the vaguest recollection of specific details taken into account rather than actually remembering how things were like in the old shows.

So a case of: "squint hard enough and you'll see it connect"

There's no reason for any of these, even if it's just implied...although if they want to play that game doesn't this imply then that megatron was resurrected then ala Return of Convoy and subsequent text? I mean if you go from us g1, he was still galvatron and seemed at peace with that.

[Sabrblade]

I almost got the impression, from the scene where the Matrix of Chaos was trying to possess Megatron, that this show was trying to imply that Unicron had previously used the Matrix of Chaos to turn Megatron into Galvatron, and that Megatron's having possibly discarded it at some other point was what turned him back into Megatron.

That... doesn't sound so bad in and of itself, but when set against the context of the Megatron-to-Galvatron scene from TFTM (since the TR and Potpie cartoons both implied that events akin to that movie happened in this universe's history), it really doesn't add up in that regard.

[Burn]

Well it's over. I know some people here don't like me ranting about the negatives, and how I shojldn't watch the show if I don't like it, so I promise this will be my last rant post (everyone else gets away with it ) but...

Dude, we all pretty much hate on this series in this thread. You're thinking of other threads where it's hard to be negative without people piling on. (In which case, keep being negative as long as it's in the rules and let the munkky pilers break the rules)

[D-Maximal_Primal]

1st, I am good with Optimal Optimus. I like that they finally made him a canon prime.

2nd, dammit, they had to kill Megatron. At least he got a final "Oh ****" line in and a good ole "Shut up" line. Those 2 things are gonna stay with me personally.

The waste of Predaking and Volcanicus though suck. And they really could have done without resurrecting Optimus Prime.

[Va'al]

In case you missed the news, we've finally arrived at the final issue of the final chapter of the final part of the Prime Wars trilogy animated series from Machinima - that's right, Power of the Primes has reached its tenth episode, currently available on both streaming service go90 (for US territories) and their official Tumblr page here.

Give it a look, let us know what you think, and join the discussion in the Energon Pub discussion boards!

The final battle between Megatronus and the Transformers leads to unforeseen consequences that will have a startling impact on Cybertron and the entire Transformers universe.

[Ultra Markus]

im getting a feeling that this whole thing must have taken place right before the great upgrade when they all became maximals and predacons because of the mention of future generations and primal prime being the new leader or maybe not this whole series never made any canonical sense
and then there's starscream, WTH!

[ToaLeePrime]

I'll admit that seeing Optimal Optimus and Optimus Prime was kinda neat. This series overall though... ugh. So underwhelming.

[Randomhero]

im getting a feeling that this whole thing must have taken place right before the great upgrade when they all became maximals and predacons because of the mention of future generations and primal prime being the new leader or maybe not this whole series never made any canonical sense
and then there's starscream, WTH!

It was never intended to be part of any established fiction. G1 or Beast Wars. It’s Generations the series. Don’t try and shoehorn it into any established fiction. Transformers fought, the war ended and this is what happened after.

[Sabrblade]

Optimus Primal in the Beast Wars cartoon was never the same kind of faction-wide leader that Optimus Prime was in the G1 cartoon. He was only the captain of a small unit of Maximals who were the crew members of his ship. The entire Maximal faction on Cybertron was governed by the High Council, presided by the Maximal Elders, who reigned over the governing state known as the Maximal Imperium.

[bvzxa]

This wasnt as bad as the last two seasons/series. I truly wished this story was more fleshed out as this would have been a good way to tell a story with the toys made from Generations/Combiner Wars/Titan Wars. A story like this with the current toy line could have almost been like G1 all over again as the toys made match the show. Instead Hasbro puts their money on RID(Aligned) and now Cyberverse to peddle more 1 step garbage. Oh well....

[ZeroWolf]

Well that 1 step garbage must sell...and hasbro is a business, so going where the money is isn't a bad strategy. Also didn't the rid cast all get toys? So wouldn't that be like g1?