The Energon Pub

News Credits: 650 · by **ScottyP** » Tue Jul 28, 2020 6:58 pm

ZeroWolf wrote:That it doesn't suck is great news as hopefully the next chapter can build on what this show does right

Yeah, I'm looking forward to the next installments now. Went into this one with a lot of fear, and while it's not revolutionary or some phenomenal Emmy winner, it's nice to have been freed from the fear.

News Credits: 22 · by **Rodimus Prime** » Wed Jul 29, 2020 3:44 am

Will it be available at midnight, or will we have to wait until later in the day?

News Credits: 650 · by **ScottyP** » Wed Jul 29, 2020 6:51 am

Rodimus Prime wrote:Will it be available at midnight, or will we have to wait until later in the day?

None of the material I can get to goes this specific, but with time zones being what they are I'd guess 3 AM eastern at the soonest.

News Credits: 56 · by **o.supreme** » Wed Jul 29, 2020 1:37 pm

It really is random. Being on the west coast, I've seen shows drop before midnight my time, exactly at midnight, and I've waited until 2am in some cases, and gave up. It was there the next morning, but I have no idea of exact release.

In any event Thursdays are always my busiest day both for work and after work obligations. I'll no doubt want to binge this all at once (seems to make for about a 2 hour movie), so Ill regrettably end up waiting until late Friday most likely. I could probably watch part of it Thursday night, but if I forced myself to watch it all, I'd be in bad shape come friday morning :HEADHURTS:

News Credits: 1642 · by **D-Maximal_Primal** » Wed Jul 29, 2020 9:23 pm

I'm getting up early to watch it before work, I hope it comes out before 6am EST

News Credits: 372 · by **Cyberpath** » Thu Jul 30, 2020 4:01 am

Watched the first three episodes. I enjoyed seeing designs largely inspired by the original, more than ever before (and finally ditching the idea of Optimus Prime having a traditional mouth.) But the writing.. not so much. The pace is too slow, they hardly transform or do anything. It's mostly politics and talking heads. And many of the characters sound the same. In three episodes MTMtE established the entire Transformers franchise, yet three episodes into the Netflix series and I feel like I've watched a single episode, a really long episode. That said, so far I'm enjoying this more than other non-Sunbow TF shows, easy. And looking forward to seeing more of characters that didn't appear in the original show, like Cog and Skytread. And if this version of Ultra Magnus has a white Convoy inside.
Yeah, overall it's refreshing to see something new. Even if I think it has zero "rewatch value."

News Credits: 2 · by **SpikeyTigertron** » Thu Jul 30, 2020 5:21 am

Just finished a little while ago. Ultimately I enjoyed it. The models were a little *too close* (read neigh spot on) to the toys (including the blast effect nubs). I'm really curious if we'll get some of the generic repaints (Seekers and the Autobots). I do like how some of the details seem to be a blend of all the various media (maybe the beginnings of a new jumping off point lore wise?).

I felt it had a nice blend of action. It's hard for me to critique some of my particular gripes w/o going into specific details... but all in all... I enjoyed it. Would keep watching.

Kind of wish Dreamworks got the nod for this. They did great with Voltron and She-Ra.

News Credits: 226 · by **Burn** » Thu Jul 30, 2020 5:48 am

It was ... meh.

I mean it's the same old story AGAIN, but this time with an even smaller cast. I know most people are going to think it's the greatest thing under the sun, and hey, good for them, but there was just something about it, and I can't say what exactly, that stopped me from truly enjoying it.

I didn't hate it, but I won't be singing it's praises unless we're having a comparison between it and Machinima's series.

Because that series sucked huge festy donkey balls.

News Credits: 54 · by **Deadput** » Thu Jul 30, 2020 5:56 am

Watched all 6 episodes and I'll say I enjoyed it for the most part, my nitpicks are pretty minor overall and that's mostly just the voices for a couple characters, namely Soundwave Although I think Soundblaster was done better for some reason, really like that they made him his own character and whenever Optimus raised his voice such as his yelling (his normal talking was fine), the only other voice I didn't quite like was Alpha Trion

Performances I really did like include Ultra Magnus, Impactor, Mirage, Cog, Elita-1, Ratchet, Starscream (some of the best traditional type SS VO I've heard), Shockwave (his voice fits his role here) and Soundblaster as weird as it is since Soundwave's was the one I disliked the most but I guess it's how they used the vocal effects with SW rather then the actual voice work.

The animation was good, it's not going to "wow" anyone I guess but I didn't notice any bad frame rate, there was a few environments I liked such as The storm and such in the Sea of Rust

The story was fine, not bad by any means but I guess it wasn't the best story ever told but I never look for stuff like that, I just watch it as it is and judge by my entertainment of it and I was entertained, it's quite better then Prime Wars in my opinion if anybody wondered about that.

Honestly the weirdest thing for me was The weird inclusion of Moonracer in the second last episode who was just a straight repaint of Chromia with no new head and her sudden strange death, she was literally just a generic with an existing character name for all purposes, to be honest it came off as a tad strange and I'm fine with the generics in the show, the other strange thing was Astrotrain's brief appearance in the final episode which I can only describe as "he shows up" and that's literally it, he does nothing besides walk a bit menacingly with no one acknowledging him, and he's like the size of Omega Supreme or something.

The spoiler pack with Ultra Magnus and Rung absolutely makes no sense to me now, is Rung supposed to represent the Alpha Trion protocols?

I quite enjoyed it, it might not be the second coming of your fave Transformers series (whether that be Beast Wars, Animated, Prime or something else) but I think I can say that it will likely be enjoyable for most fans of the franchise unless the VO bothers you more then it did me and if you have problems with character deaths.

7/10, better then average and I'm looking forward to the next parts which are presumably called Earthrise and Kingdom, I personally hope that they can increase episode count by a little for the other parts like maybe 7 or 8 instead of 6 since I feel that the number of episodes for Siege probably rushed things or made it so that the show creators couldn't fit certain things in.

News Credits: 54 · by **Deadput** » Thu Jul 30, 2020 6:06 am

Burn wrote:It was ... meh.

I mean it's the same old story AGAIN, but this time with an even smaller cast. I know most people are going to think it's the greatest thing under the sun, and hey, good for them, but there was just something about it, and I can't say what exactly, that stopped me from truly enjoying it.

I didn't hate it, but I won't be singing it's praises unless we're having a comparison between it and Machinima's series.

Because that series sucked huge festy donkey balls.

I can see where your coming from with the "repeated story" stuff, and yeah it's for sure a bit old to go into the war over and over again and I would love to see new stuff and perspectives be presented in future content.

I think at this point in the franchise since it's been about 35 years the character dynamics and cast is what one should look for in these stories rather then what the whole overall plot is since a "war" franchise can only tell so many stories.

And I think there was some nice character stories and moments told in this mini series, so for that I think Siege has it's place.

With the way Siege ended With the Ark taking off, maybe Earthrise and Kingdom will be able to tell more intriguing stories and Siege simply being the setup for things to happen, but I could of course be wrong.

News Credits: 372 · by **Cyberpath** » Thu Jul 30, 2020 10:11 am

Finished chapter one a few hours ago. It's weird how a show that tries to sell you robots that transform... doesn't actually show them transform.
Never mind Astrotrain or Omega Supreme.. what about Bumblebee, Ultra Magnus, Ratchet, Soundwave, Shockwave, Reflector, Impactor, Mirage, Arcee, Wheeljack, etc? Ridiculous. It's like a show about super-heroes that don't use their powers.
And those that did, mostly transformed out of screen.

News Credits: 1350 · by **ZeroWolf** » Thu Jul 30, 2020 10:13 am

Transformations cost animation to be fair

News Credits: 56 · by **o.supreme** » Thu Jul 30, 2020 10:26 am

I woke up at 4am my time before my work day to watch it. It was good. I wont say "solid" because it definitely had flaws. However it is nice to see after the disaster that was Prime wars things are progressing pretty much all around in terms of story, animation, character development etc.... Audio mixing still seems to have some issues, of course it could also be because I had the volume pretty low on my TV for the sake of my family, and had to have subtitles on, but it sounded like many characters were doing a loud whisper.

The lack of Transforming was a bit bothersome as some have pointed out, but it was better than Prime Wars where it was barely existent and done in shrouded dust, or offscreen. There was some of that here as well, but it was better. Fans of IDW comics, where there is barely any Transforming at all are sure to enjoy this

Unlike Prime Wars, Siege is definitely rewatchable. I know we as fans are going to pick this thing s apart, I just hope we don't kill it before Earthrise comes along. Also, I know many fans have been praising Cyberverse for it's unique takes. But it's just nto for me. Visually it is hard to watch, and the plots are silly IMHO, perfect for its intended audience, but I've seen the whole series to its conclusion, and enjoyed none of it, and have no desire to watch it again. Sige, with its flaws, I feel at least tried to make something intended for me, and I appreciate that, and will watch it a few more times no doubt before the next chapter comes along.

As I said I have a few nitpicks, but I'll leave with just a question. In one interview FJ DeSanto Says one of his favorite characters Dreadwing is introduced in Episode 5. Now, that characters name was mentioned, but was never seen (although I was a bit sleepy, maybe I missed it?)...Does anyone think there are some deleted scenes that didn't make the final cut? Or is poor FJ just confused?

News Credits: 54 · by **Deadput** » Thu Jul 30, 2020 11:37 am

He might of just meant the mention, Dreadwing is mentioned but never makes an appearance although they are mentioned to be a Seeker so for all we know they might of been one of the many background Seekers even if unlikely.

News Credits: 56 · by **o.supreme** » Thu Jul 30, 2020 3:42 pm

One thing I was impressed with was the diversity of the cast. More characters showed up than I expected. Of course no TF show to date has had every toy represented on screen (maybe BWII, Neo, & Go...but even then I'm not 100% positive), but it was surprising nonetheless. Just at a quick glance, here is who did not appear in the series:

No Battlemasters or Micromasters (some mini cassettes do appear briefly).

Sixgun
Brunt
Springer
Apeface
Galaxy Prime
Crosshairs
Bluestreak

do not appear.

Still, I believe nearly 30 characters did appear if I counted correctly (not counting generics, and multiple nameless seekers), that's about double what Beast Wars and Transformers Prime had in their first seasons sticking with smaller casts, and a much larger budget. Now I'm not saying in any way shape or form, WFC is anywhere close to as good as either of those. Basically I'm just saying I'm glad they were able to give us a couple nice surprises despite some flaws.

News Credits: 6 · by **AllNewSuperRobot** » Thu Jul 30, 2020 4:04 pm

I finished it all about 20 minutes ago. It was... ok.
I echo Burn that is it the exact same story again, which is disappointing. There was no real over attempt to even give the subtitle context. Aside from just branding for the toyline. I didn't like how toy-like the designs were. The big fat kibble backpacks on most people were ugly.

Deadput wrote:I think at this point in the franchise since it's been about 35 years the character dynamics and cast is what one should look for in these stories rather then what the whole overall plot is since a "war" franchise can only tell so many stories.

I'd dispute that. Given Transformers has about 8 different continuities, that have put their own spin on things. And there are a lot more war stories to be told than that. This is also simply repeating one of the previous ones, with caveats.

As far as voices go, Prime and Soundwave were not good. The modulation for SW made most of his dialogue inaudible and the Prime voice would have been better served with a Cheetor/Hot Shot/BB type character. Really didn't mesh with the visual. Most of the others were serviceable at best. Although too similar, as also noted above. That said, I actually think there is something off with the audio in general in this. As pointed out in the review of the first episode and it does not improve throughout.

Personally, I haven't watched a single Transformers show since the first few episodes of Prime. So the only "recent" comparisons I have are Beast Era, Animated and Prime. I didn't even think it was as good as Prime. A show I didn't like, largely for the aesthetic and disproportionate human interaction. But I just didn't get any "vibe" from this at all. It was very by the numbers and in spite of the generics used to bulk up each side, I didn't really get a sense of agency to this conflict, not from the narrative nor character dialogue. Cybertron too, has never felt so empty. It gets a 5/10 from me.

by **excalibur1814** » Thu Jul 30, 2020 4:08 pm

I'm 7 minutes in and it's lacking any and all energy. It's dull, boring, but amazing to see the characters on screen again (close to their G1 versions).

-Starscream is spot on, at least.
-Just an avenue to sell toys. Usual.
-Do they just walk everywhere?
-Nice to see the Ark again.
-So many, many words. Blah, blah.

11 minutes in, terrible. I'll continue watching as it's all we have.

P.s. Optimus put up one heck of a fight. Not /s

News Credits: 48 · by **Nemesis Primal** » Thu Jul 30, 2020 5:07 pm

So I watched the whole thing, and I have to agree that it was...decent, but certainly not "the new best piece of TF media" or anything. I liked it, and I am interested in where the Earthrise segment will go considering the ending, seems like we're either doing Mercs or Quints almost immediately, and that should help those who are frustrated with the story not being super original.

I am very happy with some of the character inclusions, particularly Impactor, the goon squad of Barricade, Skytread, and Spinister, and the appearance towards the end of Soundblaster as a Merc of all characters.

The voicework was hit and miss, some characters were great, some were forgettable, and some were eh. Hound sounded like Bulkhead for some reason, Ironhide sounded generic, and everyone has already mentioned Prime and Soundwave, but on the other hand, Wheeljack was spot-on, Impactor, Mirage, Starscream, and Ratchet were all solid, Megatron was suitably sinister-sounding without falling into the WfC/FoC game problem of him SCREAMING EVERY LINE, and Soundblaster's demon voice was a particular highlight for me.

Outside of the first episode, the action was fine, and Mirage in particular gets I think the best fight scene of the show, and the plot was a bit derivative but still included just barely enough new tweaks to be interesting for me. The way they handled the individual character plots were pretty good though, I was able to be invested in Jetfire and Impactor's allegiances wavering despite knowing it was coming because of how they make both of them unique (is that a spoiler? The toys straight-up marketed it).

I think the character models being based off the toys was for the most part actually a good thing, I like being able to see the figures on my desk in motion on the screen, although it did bother me that Ratchet had Ironhide's shoulders for some reasonand Arcee randomly showed up in full Sunbow-kibble-free glory because...why?

Hopefully Astrotrain gets to see more action in Earthrise, the fact that there's no WfC Buzzsaw is now especially annoying because I need one for Soundblaster, and I guess now we know both why the spoiler Magnus was just a beat-up Magnus instead of a Decepticon repaint and why Elita's release is being relegated to the Netflix exclusives instead of a proper ER release.

My brother also kept popping in and watched most of it with me, and he both says he liked it and had surprisingly few questions for his level of TF knowledge, so if they wanted the series to be enjoyable for both the casual Netflix viewer and the TF fans I guess they succeeded?

excalibur1814 wrote:I'm 7 minutes in and it's lacking any and all energy. It's dull, boring, but amazing to see the characters on screen again (close to their G1 versions).

-Starscream is spot on, at least.
-Just an avenue to sell toys. Usual.
-Do they just walk everywhere?
-Nice to see the Ark again.
-So many, many words. Blah, blah.

11 minutes in, terrible. I'll continue watching as it's all we have.

P.s. Optimus put up one heck of a fight. Not /s

If it helps, I thought the pilot was probably the weakest of the 6 episodes, the protagonists just running away and the Seekers changing TO ROBOT MODE TO CHASE THEM WHEN THEY WERE ALREADY IN TETRAJET MODE was just plain stupid.

News Credits: 54 · by **Deadput** » Thu Jul 30, 2020 5:33 pm

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:
Deadput wrote:I think at this point in the franchise since it's been about 35 years the character dynamics and cast is what one should look for in these stories rather then what the whole overall plot is since a "war" franchise can only tell so many stories.

I'd dispute that. Given Transformers has about 8 different continuities, that have put their own spin on things. And there are a lot more war stories to be told than that. This is also simply repeating one of the previous ones, with caveats.

Yeah I get that realistically there could be new stories to tell if people really "wanted" to.

But my overall point is that it's unlikely to happen, Transformers isn't going to have that kind of effort/talent placed onto it, it's always just going to be different people putting their own spin on the same story every time, but that doesn't mean there can't be some fun retellings of a story.

It's unrealistic to expect something that will be the next big thing so I will take what I can get and if it's entertaining then it's fine enough for me.

There isn't going to ever be another Beast Wars or Animated, not in this day and age or the foreseeable future if the state of overall media is anything to go by.

Originality is dead and has been for some time.

News Credits: 2 · by **Tigerhawk7109** » Thu Jul 30, 2020 5:55 pm

Three episodes in, and Siege is... not half bad. It’s a little slow, but I think that it’s building well.

The characters are a mixed bag. I actually think I sympathize with the neutrals, Ratchet and Bumblebee, more than the Autobots. Their performances are great.

Jake Foushee is a pretty weak Optimus. I think he worked better in Cyberverse than he does here.

However, the performance of the year has to go to Keith Silverstein for his Jetfire. This jet is absolutely incredible, and now I want a Siege Jetfire. This is coming from a guy who’s favorite character is Jetfire, but the show is worth watching for Silverstein’s performance alone. Beautiful.

So, Siege is pretty okay. Definitely rewatchable. And I definitely agree with SpikeyTigertron over Dreamworks getting the nod, because Dreamworks and Netflix are my favorite combination in animation.

So, ‘Til all are one!

:BH-PREDACON:

by **Lorekeeper** » Thu Jul 30, 2020 7:33 pm

The animation avoided many of the sins of the Prime Wars eyesore: the character models had weight, and the scenes were actually directed with some cinematic skill.

Voice acting was hit or miss, I actually watched the back 3 episodes with the volume down and the subtitles on. Optimus Prime should not yell. Raising his voice to be heard would be acceptable, but this weakling screaming was unacceptable.

Bad war setting, though. The military tactics and how much damage someone or something took from a direct hit was inconsistent at best. Everyone had plot armor until they didn't. And why punch instead of shoot? Why say "shoot them" or "kill them"(and then they never get around to it) when they could have been shooting already? This is a problem with most kids-military shows, though.

Yeah, I'll go with "didn't suck."

News Credits: 22 · by **Rodimus Prime** » Thu Jul 30, 2020 8:02 pm

I'm going to watch it again tonight, in case I missed some stuff, but my first impression is also that it's just okay. It's acceptable, but not great. To me, most of the problems lie in the performances, not the story or the art. During the 1st half I kept thinking I was watching a show version of the WFC video game because the settings and backgrounds seemed like they were taken from the games.

Otherwise I just have some nitpicks.

- The seekers running after Autobots when they could fly.
- Bee's characterization was all wrong to me. His lines sounded like they should have been coming from Hot Rod's mouth.
- Was I the only one who cringed during Prime and Elita's final scene?
- In the last episode, the Ark's design bothered me. It was way too flat and wide. Looked like a saucer.

Like I said, I'll research it and cone up with more, but on first viewing, it seems like it was made for the reason we all think: to sell toys. There was no sign that it was a labor of love for any of the performers or writers and producers. It was lacking serious passion.

News Credits: 9 · by **Sowndwave76** » Thu Jul 30, 2020 11:27 pm

Burn wrote:It was ... meh.

I mean it's the same old story AGAIN, but this time with an even smaller cast. I know most people are going to think it's the greatest thing under the sun, and hey, good for them, but there was just something about it, and I can't say what exactly, that stopped me from truly enjoying it.

I didn't hate it, but I won't be singing it's praises unless we're having a comparison between it and Machinima's series.

This was also my initial feeling.

A couple things I didn't like; Megatron was too reserved, Optimus was too emotional.
There's a spirit that's lost in CG animation compared to hand-drawn. Sure this comes with major advantages, but the overall look is too stiff even if these are metal robots.
I'm also wondering if we'll ever see Soundwave or Soundblaster's alt mode... Something tells me someone (or a lot of people) thought that mode was so weak that they didn't want to bother with adding it in to the show.
Could be wrong, but if they thought it was amazing, you'd think they would've added it in somewhere.
I mean, I'll be really surprised if they don't have Soundwave in his recorder mode at some point in ER.

I am looking forward to seeing what happens next, although I'm not expecting a whole lot.

News Credits: 11 · by **Nexus Knight** » Fri Jul 31, 2020 12:44 am

Sowndwave76 wrote:Megatron was too reserved, Optimus was too emotional

Agree to disagree... I actually thought these were some of the best character work for these characters that we've seen (in animation) of this time of the war for these two leaders. Megatron feels like a Megatron who hasn't been at this tyranny thing for a long time. It makes sense for him to be a little hesitant at full evil, holding back, even if for the briefest of brief moments. Optimus Prime feels like a newish leader, with some experience, but not the completely unshakable one we know. He's not entirely sure if he's made the right choices, and he feels the weight of the deaths he's indirectly responsible for.

I enjoyed the time I spent watching this series. Is there better? I can point to Prime or BW for that. However, like Cybertron or Cyberverse, I didn't find it bad. It was good, but not great. It took risks, but not always. The voice acting was all over the place, the animation was fine, and the action sequences were fun. All in all, if you had fun watching it, even just a little, it did it's job in my opinion. I'll probably watch this series again, especially when Earthrise comes out.

Sidenote: No matter your opinion of this series, I think there's something we can all probably agree on- There is no WAY on Earth or Cybertron that this series can be placed in the same leagues as the Prime Wars trilogy.

News Credits: 4835 · by **william-james88** » Fri Jul 31, 2020 1:50 am

It was fine. Not great but not bad. The animation was fine but yes the dedication to the toys was distracting. Except for Mirage. I think the toy having a fake chest means his proportions work better for the screen (just like how the current MPs trying to be exactly like the show models, have to put fake parts for chests, but in reverse). And I really did not like Optimus Prime here. This reminds me a lot of the way he has been portrayed in IDW of late, that being ridiculously boring. I also really didn't like the voice used for him here, which is odd since I feel that same voice actor does a decent job with Cyberverse. I guess he was going for less "cartoony" here, or "younger" and it just did not work.
The decepticons were amazing though. Everyone was written super well. I loved Megatron, Starscream, Shockwave. The show creators see to know these characters inside and out. For all of them, I see their motivations and how they are indeed a threat. Shockwave was just perfect (as he was in cyberverse), with these batshit machievelan plans that all sound perfectly cold and logical to get the job done with no fail (although, as always, he does fail). Starscream is interesting since Frank already voicd him before, but the way they alter that voice here is just a perfect call back. It's odd, the cons seemed to be in a different show than the autobots.
Oh and regarding voices, Ironhide's voice just threw me off, what is he 25? And Elita-1 really suffers here. She is written as a sterotypical nag, only pointing problems without ever offering solutions. Come on, it's 2020, women can be written better than this.

Lastly, very random point... where was scrap face? The Netflix line went all out on providing a rather interesting deco and I didn't see him. I did go get some food at some point, maybe I missed him.