The Energon Pub

[o.supreme]

It was a bit of a short first episode (5 minutes ) . I think they said about 7-8 minutes each. I guess we'll know next week if that was an exaggeration or not. usually in a short series like this, the last episode is a bit longer. I'm thinking the last episode will probably be closer to the 10 minute mark.

[MrBlack]

Regardless of whether Windblade should be able to take down a combiner, that's not what a Mary Sue is.

from Wikipedia

the "Mary Sue" is judged as a poorly developed character, too perfect and lacking in realism to be interesting

sounds about right to me.

It was a five minute episode. None of the characters were developed, or were at all interesting (and I fear that will be a problem moving forward).

At this point, all she's done is take down a combiner. We don't know how hard that actually is in this continuity; Optimus and Megatron may be taking them down left, right, and center later on. There isn't even remotely enough material available yet to state whether Windblade is a Mary Sue or not. Such characters also tend to be author inserts or wish-fulfillment characters, and there is no indication that is going on here.

[o.supreme]

We don't know how hard that actually is in this continuity; Optimus and Megatron may be taking them down left, right, and center later on. There isn't even remotely enough material available yet to state whether Windblade is a Mary Sue or not. Such characters also tend to be author inserts or wish-fulfillment characters, and there is no indication that is going on here.

A combiner should never be that easy to take down in ANY continuity. I know it happened in the original series (both cartoon and comic), in the Japanese series like HM, MF, & Victory, RiD and in Energon. It's always been a point of contention with me. Additionally, if anyone doesn't think that the insertion of Windblade wasn't at the demand (wish-fulfillment) of Hasbro, they should think again.

speaking in general about combiners. It just saddens me that 30+ years into the franchise we have not yet had any medium that properly presents them (perhaps the DW comics but unfortunately that was short lived). A combiner becomes "more than the sum of its parts" so, the typical 5 member "scramble" type combiner should be able to stand up to a small army, say no less than 25 single transformers, some "super weapon", another combiner, or larger transformer such as Sky Lynx or Omega Supreme. The "weak spot" contrivance for times such as Devastator's first appearance and Bruticus' second is plausible on occasion, but you'd think after a period of time, they would have worked that out. My apologies for the rant. I guess its just frustrating when you see something you enjoy so much, and your absolute favorite part about it, never quite hits the mark it was intended to. I'm definitely going to keep watching this series to see where it goes.

[ZeroWolf]

Combiners taken down too easily in Victory? I seem to recall liokaiser being a monster...and the one bot to truly deal with him being an uber powerful but out of control sometimes Victory Leo. Another thing about combiners is though, you have to be very careful about how you handle them in the fiction as they can invalidate a lot and ruin story potential if used incorrectly.

Their is also something to consider the potential difference between how the Japanese look at combiners to others. Given the abundance of combining robots there.

[o.supreme]

Combiners taken down too easily in Victory? I seem to recall liokaiser being a monster...and the one bot to truly deal with him being an uber powerful but out of control sometimes Victory Leo. Another thing about combiners is though, you have to be very careful about how you handle them in the fiction as they can invalidate a lot and ruin story potential if used incorrectly.

Their is also something to consider the potential difference between how the Japanese look at combiners to others. Given the abundance of combining robots there.

I am a huge fan of LioKaiser, even had the original toy for a time. But part of my problem with Victory was that the leaders (Star Sabre & Deathsaurus) were roughly the same size as the combiners. I know that works well for the scaling of toys, but it diminishes their importance. LioKaiser was a great fighter, but when he is looking eye-to-eye with Victory Sabre, or Deathsaurus, instead of towering over them, the threat of their presence is greatly diminished.

I mean if in the original cartoon Devastator was basically the same size as Jetfire Skyfire, would he have been nearly as impressive? no, not at all.

[SlyTF1]

Voice acting is WEAK. Menasor sounds like an angry child. No gravitas to his voice at all. And not even humans die that easily. 2 deaths in this show already, I could see any human surviving; or at least they'd put up a better fight than what was displayed here. Any small child would have survived that, and they expect us to buy that that little smack against a wall would be enough to kill a Cybertronian? NAH! Even if she was a Camien, they can't be that much weaker than their Cybertronian brethren.

I don't want to hear ANYBODY talk about how ROTF Devastator got punked out in that movie. Even he got a more deserved death than any of the combiners in this "show" so far.

[JazZeke]

We don't know how hard that actually is in this continuity; Optimus and Megatron may be taking them down left, right, and center later on. There isn't even remotely enough material available yet to state whether Windblade is a Mary Sue or not. Such characters also tend to be author inserts or wish-fulfillment characters, and there is no indication that is going on here.

A combiner should never be that easy to take down in ANY continuity. I know it happened in the original series (both cartoon and comic), in the Japanese series like HM, MF, & Victory, RiD and in Energon. It's always been a point of contention with me. Additionally, if anyone doesn't think that the insertion of Windblade wasn't at the demand (wish-fulfillment) of Hasbro, they should think again.

That would make her more of a Scrappy or a Wesleythan a Mary Sue. I doubt any of the executives at Hasbro see themselves as a robotic geisha. They invested a lot of hype into the creation of this character, and whether we like the outcome or the fan-built bot poll or not, they're going to cash in on that hype.

[Bronzewolf]

Machinima's Combiner Wars series, centered around characters from the toyline of the same name, held some promise for me when we saw the trailers and screencaps from various conventions. It's premise looked good, original, and tied in nicely with the rest of the current fiction. I was hopeful. However, after watching the first episode, that hope is fading. Don't get me wrong, it's not bad, perse, but there's a formula when it comes to a good series opener based off of the gigantic robots we know and love: It has to have Good Characters with good development, a good setting and premise, a nice production quality, and it should set you up well for what the rest of the series is going to bring. This is what made cartoons like Beast Wars, Prime, and, in some of those cases, the original G1 Cartoon so close and unforgettable to a lot of us. Combiner Wars fails on most of these grounds.

Let's break down the first episode.
The series starts off with a fight through a space bridge between Menasor and Computron. Menasor literally tears Computron to shreds, and the autobot combiner ends up "dying". We hit our first road block here. We're immediately thrown into a intense action sequence without any backstory at all. This would be completely fine by me if the rest of the episode tried to explain what's happening, but it doesn't. However, the episode is only five minutes long, so I will let this slide in hopes that future episodes will go into more detail.



Maxima and Windblade take on Menasor

Windblade and new fembot Maxima show up to try to defeat the remaining combiner. We get a small bit of exposition here, but it's only a few lines, and it only explains that Windblade used to be a "City Speaker", meaning she could talk to "Titans" (Metroplex, Fort Max, Etc.) We already knew she could do this, but it's nice to see Machinima try to keep this new series grounded in existing fiction. However, Menasor delivers this dialogue in the new "I will start yelling at random intervals for no reason" voice Machinima gave him, so it's not very easy to listen to. Roadblock #2 comes in the form of the animation. It's pretty good on the whole, but sometimes it's really smooth and fluid, and then sometimes it's broken up and choppy like a motioncomic. So, during the fight between Windblade, Maxima, and Menasor, due to this mix of the two, it's hard to keep track of what exactly is happening.

The series tries to pump some tension into the episode by having Windblade get caught by Menasor, and Maxima feels the only way to save her is to make the Ultimate Sacrifice. She becomes the embodiment of the "Friend/mentor/parent/sibling dies" trope to give Windblade a bit of a backstory and a reason to hate combiners. This doesn't work mainly because she already hates combiners. It's not like she had this drastic change of heart only when her (Friend? Sister? Pupil? We don't know. We never find out) dies. The tension comes across as forced and doesn't get any emotion out of the viewer, especially since the character dying is completely new and we know nothing about her.


Maxima, a new Female Autobot, does two minutes in.

Windblade, now freed, takes on Menasor alone. This isn't a problem, however, because somehow she takes him down in literally two swipes of her sword; about 5 seconds. This would also be excusable if she watched her friend die and went into a Anakin Skywalker-style fit of rage and just started beating up Menasor, but no. She just randomly gets this power with no real change in emotion.
This image is finally revealed to be Windblade, cutting Menasor in half, winning a fight that was much easier than it should have been

She kills Menasor after he worries her for a moment, talking about how he and her are alike, both killers. It's just that she uses a good cause to justify it. This story ark holds promise, and it will be interesting to see where it goes. After Windblade leaves, Computron starts waking up. The episode ends with a still shot of Optimus Prime, in the desert we saw him in in his spotlight video.

Windblade leaves after smashing Computron's Autobot badge

All and all, the series does have its flaws, but it's the first episode. I'm willing to give it a chance, and I recommend you do, too. It's only five minutes of your time, and it gives us the Transformers action we all know and enjoy.

Wanna see the episode for yourself? Check it out at https://www.go90.com/ or on the Go90 mobile app!

Or you could just watch it right here:

[Kurona]

I can't quite pin down why I didn't like it, but... I just couldn't enjoy this at all. I think Menasor sums up every problem I have with this.

-He speaks in full sentences. What?
-He went from Jock to megalomaniac "there's gonna be an army of us mwahaha!" villain. Is he some care-about-himself berserker or a fanatic for his 'race'? Well I guess we won't find out now because...
-He went down so friggin' easily. Even if Windblade is supposed to be extremely powerful this just feels so disappointing.
-It feels like he and Computron are treated less as combiners and just... really big dudes.


Also it's nice to know we got a new character just so she could die. Yay. What was the point in Maxima? Like... honestly, what was the point in her? We learned nothing about her, Windblade already has motivation to kill everything as shown from the prelude, and it kind of makes little sense for such a revenge-focused character as Windblade to have a partner like that. Maxima was pointless, confusing, and dead literally within two minutes of her introduction. Why was she there?

And after we got some really creative fight scenes in IDW's Combiner Wars what with taking advantage of the HFG's transformation from foot to fist, detaching limbs for projectiles, separating part of themselves to avoid attacks... we're right back to G1's "they're just big guys that punch each other and sometimes have a gun". Menasor didn't even use his sword, goddamn.

Oh yeah and the animation was choppy and the voice acting wasn't that great. Which I can kind of put up with if there's something entertaining... but there wasn't. There just wasn't.


I realise I shouldn't judge a series based on the first episode - and I don't - but first impressions count for a lot, and this was not a good start. I'm hoping some of the later episodes can have something I can enjoy.

[Sabrblade]

Haven't watched the episode yet as I can't figure go90 out on my computer (don't have an Internet-able mobile device), but I'm chuckling at all the negative comments about the episode in this thread. I mean, what were you guys really expecting from a mini-webseries of eight 5-7 minute-long episodes? This isn't gonna be anywhere near the level of quality one would get out of a full fledged long-running television series of 22-minute-long episodes. It's obviously gonna stand among the kind of shows that Transformers: Cyber Missions and Sanjou Gattai Transformers Go! were.

Were people really expecting this to be something like "The next Transformers: Prime" or something? It's another bottom-of-the-barrel mini-cartoon. The people making this series can only do so much with what little they have to work with, no matter how much effort and quality work they put into it. You can't have too much depth or complexity within a 5-minute time constraint. That's why something like Thomas the Tank Engine has lasted for so long in this format: It keeps things simple.

I might be able to have a better grasp on the complaints once I get to see the episode (why they put it on such an obscure media format that not everyone has access to is beyond me), but for now, it honestly doesn't surprise me that it isn't on the same level as a mainstream televised cartoon series, but is instead on a level of its own.

[Kurona]

Haven't watched the episode yet as I can't figure go90 out on my computer (don't have an Internet-able mobile device), but I'm chuckling at all the negative comments about the episode in this thread. I mean, what were you guys really expecting from a mini-webseries of eight 5-7 minute-long episodes? This isn't gonna be anywhere near the level of quality one would get out of a full fledged long-running television series of 22-minute-long episodes. It's obviously gonna stand among the kind of shows that Transformers: Cyber Missions and Sanjou Gattai Transformers Go! were.

Were people really expecting this to be something like "The next Transformers: Prime" or something? It's another bottom-of-the-barrel mini-cartoon. The people making this series can only do so much with what little they have to work with, no matter how much effort and quality work they put into it. You can't have too much depth or complexity within a 5-minute time constraint. That's why something like Thomas the Tank Engine has lasted for so long in this format: It keeps things simple.

I might be able to have a better grasp on the complaints once I get to see the episode (why they put it on such an obscure media format that not everyone has access to is beyond me), but for now, it honestly doesn't surprise me that it isn't on the same level as a mainstream televised cartoon series, but is instead on a level of its own.

Thought this sort of comment would come...
I'm not expecting anything amazing. I'm not expecting to be blown away by this. I'm expecting something mildly enjoyable to spend a few minutes on.
... and it couldn't even do that. There's just not anything in the episode I could find enjoyable. It's just a confusing, loud, irritating, nonsensical mess.

[Kyleor]

It looks like the best option for this series will be to wait until it's fully released, and someone splices the "episodes" together into one video.

[Madeus Prime]

Thought this sort of comment would come...I'm not expecting anything amazing. I'm not expecting to be blown away by this. I'm expecting something mildly enjoyable to spend a few minutes on.... and it couldn't even do that. There's just not anything in the episode I could find enjoyable. It's just a confusing, loud, irritating, nonsensical mess.

The perfect summarization of my opinion.

The animation is really choppy, more so than I expected. I dislike how intelligent Menasor is here, though I think a more G1, gravelly voice for him would've helped.

And I super dislike the trope of "Loved one dies so I'm going to kill them all". Less Combiner Wars and more Attack on Combiner if you ask me.

[Tyrannacon]

Haven't watched the episode yet as I can't figure go90 out on my computer (don't have an Internet-able mobile device), but I'm chuckling at all the negative comments about the episode in this thread. I mean, what were you guys really expecting from a mini-webseries of eight 5-7 minute-long episodes? This isn't gonna be anywhere near the level of quality one would get out of a full fledged long-running television series of 22-minute-long episodes. It's obviously gonna stand among the kind of shows that Transformers: Cyber Missions and Sanjou Gattai Transformers Go! were.

Were people really expecting this to be something like "The next Transformers: Prime" or something? It's another bottom-of-the-barrel mini-cartoon. The people making this series can only do so much with what little they have to work with, no matter how much effort and quality work they put into it. You can't have too much depth or complexity within a 5-minute time constraint. That's why something like Thomas the Tank Engine has lasted for so long in this format: It keeps things simple.

I might be able to have a better grasp on the complaints once I get to see the episode (why they put it on such an obscure media format that not everyone has access to is beyond me), but for now, it honestly doesn't surprise me that it isn't on the same level as a mainstream televised cartoon series, but is instead on a level of its own.

Very true. Honestly I wasn't expecting too much from it myself. I mean I know the creatives behind it have been trying to build hype for this. Aiming to make it a mature series. In some ways I guess it was? But 5 minutes didn't really show that much maturity. I'd have to see the series in entirety before I could say if it was mature or not. This may be just me being me of course. I just had hoped the episodes would be a bit longer because 5-7 minutes just goes by too quickly. I wouldn't say I didn't enjoy this, and I'm definitely not expecting something on par with TFP even here.

I remain mostly neutral though myself. I'm eager to see additional episodes to make a more informed and inclusive opinion though.

[Sabrblade]

Okay... finally got Go90 figured out, and just found a YouTube upload of the episode (but which has now been taken down, darn it).

So now that I've watched it, I see that the problems don't lie with the format (it being a 5-minute-long mini-cartoon) as I thought, but with what the series has set out to do. To put it bluntly, it is everything that was wrong with Transformers: Prime shot up to the eleven.

Whereas Prime's goal was to make everything as "epic" as possible (as so stated many times by that show's creators), this show's goal (as stated by its own creators at previous times) is to make everything as "bad-A-double-S" as possible.

This was pure spectacle with almost no heart, charm, or wit to it. A dry, soulless experience that was little more exciting than taking one's own toys and bashing them together again and again (and to us, THAT should be entertaining).

Maxima was the Prime Cliffjumper of the show in the worst way possible, Windblade is vastly overpowered and Arcee-levels of annoying, Menasor had no menace to him, Computron was a waste, and the whole thing just felt so depressingly angsty for angst's sake.

Just a very bleak, dull, uncharismatic first episode.


P.S. - Though Menasor's voice has been the subject of much contention, in that it was just laughable, I gotta say that it very much reminded me of the voice of a Decepticon from a previous TF cartoon: Ro-Tor from RiD 2001.

And personally, he also kinda sounded like an impression of Jerry Houser.

[Flashwave]

We don't know how hard that actually is in this continuity; Optimus and Megatron may be taking them down left, right, and center later on. There isn't even remotely enough material available yet to state whether Windblade is a Mary Sue or not. Such characters also tend to be author inserts or wish-fulfillment characters, and there is no indication that is going on here.

A combiner should never be that easy to take down in ANY continuity. I know it happened in the original series (both cartoon and comic), in the Japanese series like HM, MF, & Victory, RiD and in Energon. It's always been a point of contention with me. Additionally, if anyone doesn't think that the insertion of Windblade wasn't at the demand (wish-fulfillment) of Hasbro, they should think again.

speaking in general about combiners. It just saddens me that 30+ years into the franchise we have not yet had any medium that properly presents them (perhaps the DW comics but unfortunately that was short lived). A combiner becomes "more than the sum of its parts" so, the typical 5 member "scramble" type combiner should be able to stand up to a small army, say no less than 25 single transformers, some "super weapon", another combiner, or larger transformer such as Sky Lynx or Omega Supreme. The "weak spot" contrivance for times such as Devastator's first appearance and Bruticus' second is plausible on occasion, but you'd think after a period of time, they would have worked that out. My apologies for the rant. I guess its just frustrating when you see something you enjoy so much, and your absolute favorite part about it, never quite hits the mark it was intended to. I'm definitely going to keep watching this series to see where it goes.

A combiner is only more than the sum of its parts if the parts come togehter. That's been the weakness all along. You get the Stunticons to think about themselves as themselves, and not as Menasor's leg, and the big guy falls over. Easy as that. The "Weak Spot" plot was addressed in IDW to a degree through Monstructor. Prime took him down that way once or twice until Jhaxius caught on and slapped a piece of armor over that. That spot was approximately where Scowl and Birdbrain's halves met, and had the effect of snapping the spinal cord. But if you think about it, any Combiner regardless of size should suffer from multiples of the same effect. They may not be asy to get to, but at some point in the knee you have a transition between two bots, the Torso and the Leg dude. Regardless of how well armored the Combiner may be, that knee is probably a problem

[Randomhero]

I've been watching RedvsBlue since I was in high school so webseries that are 5-7 minutes don't bug me. My primary television is YouTube so I'm accustomed to short length content.

I thought it was...okay? The style is nice but the frame rate it awful and yeah the voice acting is not great. Menasor honestly sounded like 15 year old trying to imitate RID grimlock.

I got hopes it will get better

[Powermaster Swag]

How long are these episodes supposed to be? I just watched an episode on the Go90 app called "The Fall". Is this the first episode?

yes

Okay, just making sure.

[Nexus Knight]

Is there a reason the video's no longer available?

[Optimizzy]

ok, so I just watched it...

man...I'm not going to spoil anything (How could I anyway? Its barely loner than a movie trailer), but this was weak. The characters seemed way off to me. It seems like they watched a bad anime and was like "Oh, that, that is what we should do."

I am disappoint.

[Optimizzy]

I've been watching RedvsBlue since I was in high school so webseries that are 5-7 minutes don't bug me. My primary television is YouTube so I'm accustomed to short length content.

I thought it was...okay? The style is nice but the frame rate it awful and yeah the voice acting is not great. Menasor honestly sounded like 15 year old trying to imitate RID grimlock.

I got hopes it will get better

yeah, he sounded like an angry kid. Windblade sounded good.

and 10 minutes long stuff is ok...when it's produced often and easily. I doubt this is either. At least as 15 minutes. But 5? That's not what I thought we were getting.

[1984forever]

This is easily the best Transformers cartoon to come out in the last 30 years. But I have to admit that a pretty low bar has been set since the original G1 went off the air.

[william-james88]

Is there a reason the video's no longer available?

No reason, I am watching it right now on youtube, we embeded the video at the end of the review.

ok, so I just watched it...

man...I'm not going to spoil anything (How could I anyway? Its barely loner than a movie trailer), but this was weak. The characters seemed way off to me. It seems like they watched a bad anime and was like "Oh, that, that is what we should do."

I am disappoint.

Me too, it ends with a shot of Optimus and we dont hear the awesome John Bailey

But aside from that, yeah its dissapointing. I do not like the animation at all. It is very repetitive, like older anime. The scene where Menasor and Windblade are having a back and forth and Menasor's mouth is just moving up and down randomly reminded me of Speed Racer.



I am also not fond of the direction for Menasor, he sounds unintimidating. Also, and this is more because I am aware of he business behind this, I am kind of ticked at how that is the Superion redeco we see as Computron. We already bought the combner wars toys guys, you dont have to sell them anymore!

[JazZeke]

This is easily the best Transformers cartoon to come out in the last 30 years. But I have to admit that a pretty low bar has been set since the original G1 went off the air.

Uhhh... have you even watched Beast Wars, Animated, and Prime?

[Kurona]

I finally worked out a reason for Maxima's existence.

Starscream



Thundercracker



Skywarp