The Energon Pub

[Sabrblade]

Episode 8 - https://www.go90.com/videos/3mScbYBjij0

[Sabrblade]

Well, that episode was a whole lot of nothing.

[Burn]

Well, that episode was a whole lot of nothing.

Whoah now hold on.

Don't go talking it up like that, you'll get peoples hopes up!

I mean sure, there was a lot of punching and shooting at Trypticon, and Trypticon stomping and shooting at everyone, and then there were Combiners who, like previous episodes, had more screen time than the entire series dedicated to them.

And then there's the whole Fortress Maximus being really big, but incredibly slow to fly.

Oh and that one time when Optimus thought he was back in the 86 movie.

But yeah, another drawn out episode that didn't really do much at all.

And for those outside the US, have a present.

[King Kuuga]

Let's look for the positives. The action sequences were nice. We saw Trypticon's base mode. Victorion's acting is decent. We got an allusion that combiners are, actually, combined robots and not just monolithic units.

Negatives: "Beware the power of the Primes." "What?" "............"
Fort Max is slow
Still no Cerebros
Giant Robot Hands Save Lives (maybe not applicable since he might have survived impact with the ground, and it was the impaling he avoided)
Menasor's voice
More combiner warring than in all of Combiner Wars (kind of a positive except for the title relevancy)
The destruction is supposedly catastrophic. Sure would be nice if we could get some perspective on that damage.

[o.supreme]

Well, that episode was a whole lot of nothing.

For weeks and weeks we've both posted our thoughts on each episode, as have several others. I don't know if it was the long weekend or what, but after watching this episode, and before seeing your comment I was going to just post a comment myself, but you beat me too it.

I know Bronzewolf puts a lot of effort into reviewing these episodes for the site, but honestly, I wouldn't blame him if he just took a week off, and skipped to next weeks episode

[Sabrblade]

I mean, last episode was a whole lot of nonsense, and with "nonsense" there's at least a craziness or insanity to it. While "nothing" is just... boring.

[primalxconvoy]

Well, that episode was a whole lot of nothing.

Whoah now hold on.

Don't go talking it up like that, you'll get peoples hopes up!

I mean sure, there was a lot of punching and shooting at Trypticon, and Trypticon stomping and shooting at everyone, and then there were Combiners who, like previous episodes, had more screen time than the entire series dedicated to them.

And then there's the whole Fortress Maximus being really big, but incredibly slow to fly.

Oh and that one time when Optimus thought he was back in the 86 movie.

But yeah, another drawn out episode that didn't really do much at all.

And for those outside the US, have a present.

Cheers. They link actually works for me in Japan (unlike the YouTube links).

When is the PROPER, "Geewun Reedun" version going to be out, though?

[Bronzewolf]

Welcome back, Seibertronians! If you celebrate it, I hope you had a very Merry Christmas, you had a good time with your friends and loved ones, and that Santa left many robots under your tree. But let's forget about all the happy feelings we've acquired over the past few days and immediately throw them into a pit of despair and agony, because it's time again for Machinima's Titans Return!

Okay, I'm being overdramatic, because this series on the whole is still leagues better than any Transformer content we've gotten out of Machinima previously. It's when you start breaking it down and looking into the individual episodes when things start to fall apart. Let's do exactly that with the new installment, Episode 8: In Good Hands!

This Episode of Titans Return sponsored by Allstate

We again find Super Combiner Victorion fighting Trypticon, and it's very Sentai/Classic Mecha inspired, and it's actually pretty cool. The one thing that detracts from this is Victorion's grunts. There's little variation to them, so they end up sounding like a video game character they only recorded one "Pain" sound for. It gets grating and annoying, but the scene changes fast enough so it doesn't get too much. That's really a nitpick, though, on an otherwise fun scene.

AGH. AGH. AGH. AGH. AGH. AGH. AGH.

We cut back to Windblade and Fortress Maximus, who are both floating through the sky in a truly Studio Ghibli fashion. They analyse the situation before they arrive, and again it's a very nice scene. Michael Dorn is great as Fort Max, and even with his robotic lines, he packs in a lot of emotion. Some of Windblade's lines here are feel a bit disconnected from the scene, but, like I said a couple reviews ago, it's obvious that not all of these actors recorded at the same time, which makes it hard to match the emotion of a scene and make a conversation sound natural.

At the same time, the Chorus of Banes from the Dark Knight Rises-Sorry, the Chorus of Primes talks to Optimus about the threats currently gripping the city, and he decides to join the fight. The Combiners split from their super-combiner mode, and decide to attack Trypticon individually. There's some scale discrepancies here, but it's not that big of a deal.

Energon Mains UNDER the city? They seem to be pretty on the surface to me, hence why your friend just fell in one.

Victorion finds some random energon shard (??) and decides to hurl it at Trypticon to make him fall into an Energon main behind him. Again, we get a weirdly long establishing shot to get across this idea. The shot lasts 9 seconds, when it could have easily been done in 3 and still have done it's job.

It's the Cybertronian Olympics! All the way from Caminus comes Victorion, competing for the Gold in Javelin!

The lack of visible damage in this show is really bothering me, as well. Prime is just wailing on Trypticon's neck with his axe, and it's clearly hurting him, as Trypticon recoils and gets angry while he's doing it, but there's no visible damage or wear from the attacks. This is the same case as Metroplex back in the beginning of this show. He was apparently so damaged he couldn't continue to fight, but we didn't see any damage until his entire arm got blown off.

Does about the same amount of damage as the actual toys would do to each other.

Victorion throws her spear at Trypticon but - shock! - she misses, instead hitting the Energon line behind him, causing a huge explosion, engulfing everyone around it. I would have loved to have been in the Metroplex City Planning meeting where they just decided to put extremely volatile rivers that explode at the slightest touch flowing through the middle of the city.

Trypticon actually transforms into base mode, and starts using his defense systems to hold his attackers back. He fires directly at Optimus, launching him across the city. Just as he's about to crash into the street, Fort Max comes down from the heavens to save him at the last second. Not sure how that landing was any softer, considering Fort Max is also made out of metal, just like the ground, but what are you going to do? Windblade comes to him and tells him to relax, because he's "In good hands".

Roll cred-Hey! they actually did!

Overall, I think this episode is a solid "Okay". I mean, it's certainly not as laughably bad as the previous couple of episodes, but that's a pretty low bar. It is very nice to look at, though. I think they nailed the character models and set pieces. Surprisingly, the art style and animation are quickly becoming my favorite part about this series, when they were one of my biggest issues in Combiner Wars. The subtle improvements they made really did make a difference. Like I said in the previous review, the colors are really aesthetically pleasing, too. Most of the voice acting's okay, at least, if not better. Peter Cullen and Michael Dorn are particular highlights. It just feels like there's no weight to anything that's happening. No consequence. Maybe that's because of that damage issue I touched on above; no one is shown to physically get injured through all of these battles, so there doesn't feel like there's any desperate issues, even though there's a giant robot dinosaur attacking the city.

It'll be interesting to see how all of this wraps up in the coming weeks. Thanks for tuning in once again, and please keep the discussion going in the energon pub forums below. Do you agree? Do you disagree? Please tell me why. See you next week!

[Nexus Knight]

Victorion throws her spear at Trypticon but - shock! - she misses, instead hitting the Energon line behind him, causing a huge explosion, engulfing everyone around it.

I actually think she meant to hit the vein. She saw that Devastator done went boom in one, realized they went boom when things touched them, and grabbed the shard. Then she shouted at everyone to back away so that they would not go boom (not that it would matter, these robots seem indestructible) and then she threw it. And then it went boom.

[Burn]

Victorion throws her spear at Trypticon but - shock! - she misses, instead hitting the Energon line behind him, causing a huge explosion, engulfing everyone around it.

I actually think she meant to hit the vein. She saw that Devastator done went boom in one, realized they went boom when things touched them, and grabbed the shard. Then she shouted at everyone to back away so that they would not go boom (not that it would matter, these robots seem indestructible) and then she threw it. And then it went boom.

That's how I took it as well.

[o.supreme]

when I watched this a second time, (I know glutton for punishment), when Trypticon had Victorions sword in his mouth, did anyone else think it looked like a giant pacifier.

[Bronzewolf]

Victorion throws her spear at Trypticon but - shock! - she misses, instead hitting the Energon line behind him, causing a huge explosion, engulfing everyone around it.

I actually think she meant to hit the vein. She saw that Devastator done went boom in one, realized they went boom when things touched them, and grabbed the shard. Then she shouted at everyone to back away so that they would not go boom (not that it would matter, these robots seem indestructible) and then she threw it. And then it went boom.

That's how I took it as well.

I was more or less being sarcastic, saying that they set it up like she was trying to push Trypticon into the Energon lines, but that ended up not being her plan. That would also cause a large explosion, for the record, so telling everyone to get away would still make sense.

[Sabrblade]

when I watched this a second time, (I know glutton for punishment), when Trypticon had Victorions sword in his mouth, did anyone else think it looked like a giant pacifier.

Honestly, my first thought when I saw him hold her sword in his mouth was that I thought he was going to try to breathe his fire breath through the sword, as though the sword could serve as some sort of power conduit to augment his stream of fire breath, and that him doing so at so close a range to Victorion might be a way for Trypticon to instantly kill her in one final blow.

BUUUUUUT I guess that idea would have been too creative for this show to have thought of.

[Burn]

BUUUUUUT I guess that idea would have been too creative for this show to have thought of.

Instead, let's remind people of Trypticons short arms!

[partholon]

TBH the logical thing for him to do would be to break the sword in his jaws.

trying to stab her with it in his mouth looked , well stupid.

i will say that the episode had prob the best visual so far for trypticon in terms of his base mode firing all weapons.

even though they jipped out on showing him clearly transform into it.

it was nice to see the combiners work as a team too. nice nod to computron and how long it takes him to formulate a plan.

it is kinda mad that this is more combiner wars than titans return though !

but yeah there really wasnt much to this episode. real sence of "treading water".

[WreckerJack]

Today we have to share with you a very cool stop motion video promoting the Machinima Titans Return animated series viewable on go90 (in the US). It includes some neat effects and sounds applied to a video of real Titans Returns figures in action. The video features a battle between Optimus Prime and Hot Rod against Overlord taking place in an office space. It's worth the watch as it uses some really great animation, the production team put in a lot of effort and it shows. We won't spoil the fight for you, you can watch it mirrored below.

Also, if you enjoy Titans Return figures, please be aware that some Target stores are putting some Titans Return figures on clearance after the holidays. It may be worth it to go on a toy hunt to see what you may find!

[LE0KING]

Better frame rate and story than the actual show... Sad.

[Flashwave]

He... He shot Hot Rod right out of his guns.

Just goes to show how easy it is to steal the Matrix from someone. Its funny how Hot Rod shot his jet cockpit off his arm, I have so many priblems with that popping off the little handle piece.

I love how Overlord is conking people on the head with it, how is he holding that though? Movie magic? Or is there an actual onnection point?

Love that G2 Prime every time I see it, but man when I put it on my shelf with the other bots its just not whT I want in an Optimus Prime.

[william-james88]

Better frame rate and story than the actual show... Sad.

True.

Love that G2 Prime every time I see it, but man when I put it on my shelf with the other bots its just not whT I want in an Optimus Prime.

I totally get that and I felt that until I got it in actual G2 Prime deco, Then it all made sense.

[Whifflefire]

Maybe the whole Machinima show should've been done in stop motion.

And as far as I can tell, Overlord's cockpit cannot attach to his wrist like that.

[Hydrargyrus]

This is great. Absolutely amazing.

[ExciKaiser]

Just spent 10 min trying to fit the ship on the arm. Without success.

[Sabrblade]

Love that G2 Prime every time I see it, but man when I put it on my shelf with the other bots its just not whT I want in an Optimus Prime.

I totally get that and I felt that until I got it in actual G2 Prime deco, Then it all made sense.

Yeah, the normal retail version is more "G2 Laser Optimus Prime wearing Star Convoy's deco instead of his own" than not.

[Flashwave]

Love that G2 Prime every time I see it, but man when I put it on my shelf with the other bots its just not whT I want in an Optimus Prime.

I totally get that and I felt that until I got it in actual G2 Prime deco, Then it all made sense.

Yeah, the normal retail version is more "G2 Laser Optimus Prime wearing Star Convoy's deco instead of his own" than not.

For me, its more the proportions. I have my CW Optimus Prime affixed between a mix if CHUG and Prime and he just looks right. Big without being looming, not his G1 Proportion but also not wrong. The G2 Prime just sorta washes out in the crowd

[Sabrblade]

Almost forgot about Episode 9 tonight - https://www.go90.com/videos/2BxPz9NWuwH