Another Tuesday, another episode of Machinima's Titans Return animated series! We're on to Episode 6 now, which, in complete honesty, is the worst one yet. But let's delve into the new episode and figure out exactly why! Here's Titans Return Episode 6!
We open with a (pretty cool?) shot of Trypticon, who's still raging through the city completely unopposed now with the death of Metroplex in the previous episode. This shot pans out to reveal Optimus Prime returning to the city, driving into the Basilica to meet Perceptor. We very quickly cut to the Combiners back at Fortress Maximus. They've just watched their laser beams disappear in the distance, headed toward "Metroplex City". The redundancy does not escape me. The combiners discuss their next plan, and have I mentioned that I hate Menasor's voice? Yeah, I hate Menasor's voice.
Megatron tells them that Metroplex City is a total loss, and the combiners respond by trying to beat the daylights out of him, calling him a "Betrayer" and a "Vile Traitor", etc. Didn't he help you just a little bit ago? You know, when Starscream took over your bodies? He helped rescue you! All the combiners are just so randomly hostile, it looks really strange. Megatron explains the Mistress of Flame has died, which just aggravates the Combiners more, as they believe he was the one who killed her.
Back at the Basilica, Perceptor and Optimus learn the same macabre fact, stumbling upon the Mistress' body in the Prayer chamber. They don't know who the killer was, as Perceptor gains no new evidence from studying her wounds. They leave her body in the prayer chamber, turning their attention to the more pressing matter of the Titan Dinosaur stomping though the city. They return to the basilica's controls. The dialogue here is clunky, again, as we've come to expect, but it just goes to show that most of the time errors like this aren't the voice actor's fault. A lot of times it's the direction they're given or the editing the tracks receive in post. You can have big celebrities like Wil Wheaton and voice acting legends like Peter Cullen and still have your dialogue be awkward.
Anyway, they finally get the Basilica's defenses up, and they attempt to slow Trypticon down.
This is just straight up Godzilla at this point.They return to the chamber of Primes, where Hot Rod had given up the Matrix of Leadership, and we get more scenes with the Chorus of Primes. Yay.
"Asdkfhdlkierjml, jsdkfhguinegnkjfjg, Optimus Prime."Yes, the Chorus of Primes returns to the series, just as indecipherable and completely non-understandable as the last time. Prime reclaims the Matrix from the chamber, once again truly becoming Optimus Prime.
The Combiners are still fighting with Megatron when Windblade and Emissary come in to save him, breaking up the fight. Brace yourselves, it gets really corny.
"What the Headlight are you Junkpiles doing?" Really? Really? You just said damn in the last episode, I don't think Hell is really off limits.They demand to know who really killed the Mistress, and Megatron pulls up literally just footage from the last episode. Emissary questions why he didn't just show them this footage before, and while he definitely has a point, he and Windblade
just arrived seconds ago. There is no way he knew what was happening.
Oh, look, Megatron downloaded Go90!Victorion uses the Enigma of Combination, uniting the combiners again. They disappear, traveling to the city to help stop Trypticon. Then, for whatever reason. Windblade is hooked up to Fort Max. There is nothing mentioned about this leading up to it, if I remember correctly. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but this plan comes out of nowhere! She links with Fortress Maximus, and is appears something has gone wrong. Emissary yells for her to disconnect, but she doesn't hear him. On that cliffhanger, the Episode ends.
Oh God, she's regenerating! Who's going to be the next Doctor Windblade?!? This episode really feels boring and drawn out. It made 11 minutes really feel like 20, and really started to look like a bad Godzilla/Kaiju overdub. Between the mostly-inaccurate mouth movements, bad timing and pacing, and, you know, the actual Kaiju. Don't get me wrong, it is still leagues better that Combiner Wars, but it still leaves much to be desired.
Thanks for reading my review of Episode 6. If you want to watch it yourself, you can find it over on Go90. Do you agree with me? Am I completely off base? Please let me know and share your thoughts down below! I'll see you next Tuesday with the release of episode 7!