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AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Humans shouldn't be written as the focal point of a Transformers show/film.

I don't see any reason why they couldn't as long as their a compelling character like any other.

There can be more then one main character in a film.

Having a human character can balance out the Transformers and bring the Alien back into them since Transformers are creeping more and more to just "metal humans" with not only the way they act as a person but their society and world.

Deadput wrote:...without the human and disguise elements...They might as well never transform and just use vehicles since transportation is all their used for (or in the case of jets/tanks shooting at others in cases hardly any different then somebody piloting them.)

Actually, Siege kind of made me realize something interesting in that regard. Of course, in the 80s these characters were just toys that didn't need a lot of backstory. So they "transformed to hide on Earth!!!" an all. BUT after watching Siege I realized, yeah, that's kind of a good idea to write transformation as originally being an adaptability thing, and then they realize later they can use it to their advantage as a disguise on Earth. Just my two cents on that.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Having a human character can balance out the Transformers and bring the Alien back into them since Transformers are creeping more and more to just "metal humans" with not only the way they act as a person but their society and world.

Yeah this is true. Although honestly, in my mind, the staleish acting and somewhat bizarre characterization in WFC is all because these are aliens, lol. Like, they just don't act and think like humans and the show creators "meant to do it like that". Not that I really think that's the case, but as EmGo would say "hey--it's a there, and it's a thing."

AllNewSuperRobot wrote: Then Beast Wars came along and had none. Even better.

But beast wars had humans, or human ancestors at least.

It's all in the writing for the most part. I'm upto episode 5 on wfc earthrise and the weird thing is, because of all the media after G1 it feels a bit odd to see prime constantly with a faceplate o.O
Though with the way megatrons lips are it's still not a bad thing, just an odd thing, that shouldn't be odd to someone who grew up with G1.

Positives so far, scrap face has screen time and lines wooop. A certain character looks so much better for having black highlights and yes they pretty much shat on on one of the characters I expected to be screwed with.
It's been enjoyable so far with the possible exception of knowing how some of the figures look nothing like the onscreen versions (Elita 1 will def need her backpack removing) and maybe galvatron looks bad because his figure/files wasn't ready (that or the galvatron figure is going to be bad).

Sabrblade wrote:

blackeyedprime wrote:I'm upto episode 5 on wfc earthrise and the weird thing is, because of all the media after G1 it feels a bit odd to see prime constantly with a faceplate o.O

"o.O", indeed. Because, these guys were also a thing:

Which is exactly why I should find the faceplate natural

Finished episode 6. Some of the characterisation was a bit blink and then they will be acting completely different. Think I'm going to finally finish headmasters and then move on to car robots as I only ever watched Rid and not all of the episodes. Not because the English voices were that bad in netflix wfc but some were definitely worse than previous toons so subs will be kinda change for the better.

As far as did the show work as advertising for the toys go, I'm wanting Doubledealer more than I did (and tbf he wasn't that good in the show) but less than a minute of car robots has me wanting toys I already have versions of.

Other after thoughts:

Soundwave looks better with just one pylon/thingy on his back. The voice was way too quiet, had to turn it up just to hear him.

Elita came across way better from not being at odds with prime like in siege.

Show was pretty humorless and I think it tried to put some in it. If they did try I dunno how they could have failed at it.

Not sure if anyone else talked about any of this / wants to, but there was a couple instances of some real emotion in Earthrise that I want to process through. Heh, I'm a kind of naturally empathetic person so I'm guessing some of the more tragic scenes might not resonate with others as much as they did with me. These moments really stood out to me, and are still on my mind a few days after watching.

*ahem * SPOILERS AHEAD

[01]
Chromia being shot point blank.
Damn that was miserable. I mean sure, she's one of the lesser fleshed out characters in the show, but wow I did not want her to go down...especially so unceremoniously. That ripped me to shreds lol. Fact that Chromia is the only Siege figure I own might be having some effect.

[02]
Chromia gunning down Skytread.
Damn again. I mean...he DID help them break out of Megatron's prison!! I think that did a good job of showing how calloused they've gotten due to the war. That was rough!!

[03]
Cog on the Mercenary ship.
Ugh...I mean yes, it was a bit cheap due to the fact that Cog was pretty much a background guy riiight up until that moment...but still. Ugh. When he ran up on that Quintesson you just had to cheer for him, and when he got it in the chest I was just sick to my stomach (hahah...maybe I'm a bit too sensitive). It was rough too when he was calling out on the comms to get them to stop shooting at him. At the same time, I was thinking "yeah, this guy isn't with them on the Ark when they wake up in 1984, so I guess this is how they've decided he goes". All in all a tragic scene that manage to create some impactful emotions in a short span of time.

[04]
Starscream and the other Decepticons working together w/ Autobots on the Ark.
I think the cross-faction teamwork was overall the most successful and believable aspect of the story of Earthrise (faaaar better than the humor, that's for sure). I've always loved to hate Starscream, so it was refreshing for once for me to actually want Starscream to succeed. The feeling of distrust underlying that is what really gave this scene a kick (i.e. "will the Decepticons turn on the Autobots right in the midst of this calamity when they should be working together?")

[05]
Quintesson's revenge.
First of all, yes--it upped the dramatic ante of the scene when the Mercenary ship showed up. Kind of like a "wow this sucks for them" moment. But when they reveal it was the Quint all along, that was like a real "ahhhhhhh shhhh--!!" moment. I dunno why but that was just such a freaking hype moment to me. I actually like how definitive Doubledealer's role is in ER: he brings in the Autobots for a bounty, betrays a few people, then he himself is used in a betrayal, in the end adding another layer to his "double-dealing". I thought that was genius and well wrapped-up. Goes on my list of favorite TF show moments of all time.

[06]
Decepticon prisoners save Elita-1.
Sorry, this was probably low hanging fruit, but yes, I thought it was emotionally impactful. I guess I just love a good "prison break" scene. It was also great just seeing all the leftover Decepticons gathering together with the remaining Autobots afterwards, and how they ended up "getting along". It was kind of shocking realizing--wow, Jetfire does't line up with Decepticons mindset, but he doesn't really line up with the Autobot mindset, either. I wish we could have gotten more time with these character dynamics.

[07]
Optimus sparing Megatron over and over.
To me this is the least impactful of the impactful moments. I know everyone else says that's why this Optimus is an idiot, but it really reminds me of Luke Skywalker in Empire, although maybe more in concept than in execution. I like the idea of a character sparing his enemy, always have. What I didn't like about Prime in ER is that it took me two fulls days of thinking back on the show to really grasp that that's what he was doing. In the moment, I just kind of said "why the F would he do that..?" For that reason, I kinda think Prime's not quite as well characterized as he could be (but I'm no writer).

Although it was pretty freaking awesome watching him fight Scorponok all by himself. That and him pulverizing Megatron later really vindicated the 'sacred cow' that they killed by having him get his butt handed to him by Megs in Siege.


-----

I think Earthrise was looking to give us some of the same emotional moments that BW did--deaths and betrayals, etc--it's just the character development leading up to those moments didn't set them up to have the punch they deserved. That said, given the 2 hour time limit of each "season" (basically Siege and Earthrise are movie-length) I think they're doing a really fun job of it all with such a large cast. My only comparison off the top of my head is the Avengers series, where many of the characters got one or even two of their own films before the Avengers storyline started up, so it's not really a fair comparison. I don't want to have to wait a decade for the WFC storyline to warm up lol.

blackeyedprime wrote:Finished episode 6. Some of the characterisation was a bit blink and then they will be acting completely different.

Explain that a bit more? I think I might agree with you but I'm not sure I understand.

blackeyedprime wrote:Elita came across way better from not being at odds with prime like in siege.

Show was pretty humorless and I think it tried to put some in it. If they did try I dunno how they could have failed at it.

Agreed on your point about Elita, although I didn't think of that while watching but in retrospect-so true.

Humor was rough. I thought the idea behind many of the jokes was in the right place, but the execution wasn't. I laughed about 4-5 times throughout the show because of the concept of the joek and then each time realized the joke wasn't really that funny.

just_aCloud wrote:

blackeyedprime wrote:Finished episode 6. Some of the characterisation was a bit blink and then they will be acting completely different.

Explain that a bit more? I think I might agree with you but I'm not sure I understand.

blackeyedprime wrote:Elita came across way better from not being at odds with prime like in siege.

Show was pretty humorless and I think it tried to put some in it. If they did try I dunno how they could have failed at it.

Agreed on your point about Elita, although I didn't think of that while watching but in retrospect-so true.

Humor was rough. I thought the idea behind many of the jokes was in the right place, but the execution wasn't. I laughed about 4-5 times throughout the show because of the concept of the joke and then each time realized the joke wasn't really that funny.

[spoiler][spoiler]You missed the only one scene that got me and it's in one of the earliest moments, poor Steel Jaw and recently I have no empathy.[/spoiler][/spoiler]

The characterisations were a bit disjointed, this happened with Jetfire after what he had been through in S1 didnt seem to follow on for this series. Then there was parts during a single episode where Optimus in particular went from acting one way to another scarcely a scene or two apart. Even Megs, bit of a difference between wanting to rip some one apart with their bare hands and then..erm...erm, yeagh. Even Bees full on autobot faction symbol appearance was kind of like something happened offscreen unless my eyes failed me on noticing details after taking a second to read a text.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:All I recall, from the first airing of Beast Wars on UK TV. I saw part 2 of the pilot, episodes five (Chain of Command) til 12 (Victory). Then Aftermath, Season 2's premiere was the next episode. For some time that is all I saw of Season One.

So as long as it isn't some obscure self-serving streaming service that only two countries have access to. I'm all in favour of future shows being in a designated place.

Just to a thousand times agree on this, Beast Wars seemed to only be shown on blue moons, every fifth Saturday,leap years and celestial events over here at the time. Some how I managed to follow most of it. Kinda helped that it was one of the few things I watched that my partner liked too at the time. I rewatched them all recently (I didnt remember the Rhinox and too many beans episode, now that was funny) and it was still great but then I made the mistake of watching Gundam Wing afterwards and when the voice actor is usuing rattraps voice for something else it kinda ruined Wing and Beastwars for me.

ah Scott McNeil I did think how funny it was to hear Rattrap in the dub of Wing when it premiered on CN but at that point it had been a couple of years since I watched Beast Wars on GMTV and didn't catch Beast Machines on Fox Kids

ZeroWolf wrote:ah Scott McNeil I did think how funny it was to hear Rattrap in the dub of Wing when it premiered on CN but at that point it had been a couple of years since I watched Beast Wars on GMTV and didn't catch Beast Machines on Fox Kids

Pretty much why I am going to leave it a looooong while before rewatching Beast Machines, I don't want to have the thought in my head for another series I really enjoyed the first time around.

Earthrise was enjoyable, better than Siege but not sure I'd recommend it to anyone and it does leave with more hopes for the third part being better -even if it has got a lot going against it from the get go to me (beastwars characters/timeline/voices not going to be the same). Most of the other cartoons have had stand out moments, not so sure the same can be said of this, maybe one of the Quints scenes.

Sabrblade wrote:

blackeyedprime wrote:I'm upto episode 5 on wfc earthrise and the weird thing is, because of all the media after G1 it feels a bit odd to see prime constantly with a faceplate o.O

"o.O", indeed. Because, these guys were also a thing:

This reminds me that I would love to see a new take on the "Optimus Prime with a mouth" idea but instead of his faceplate sliding back, Optimus would be wearing a helmet (so the blue head design and the faceplate are a removeable helmet) since I've always thought that most Optimus heads were knight like.

A concept I would love to see alongside a reinterpretation of Prime's as an order of Knights that are dwindling down to the point of being almost non-existent before the war.

Deadput wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

blackeyedprime wrote:I'm upto episode 5 on wfc earthrise and the weird thing is, because of all the media after G1 it feels a bit odd to see prime constantly with a faceplate o.O

"o.O", indeed. Because, these guys were also a thing:

This reminds me that I would love to see a new take on the "Optimus Prime with a mouth" idea but instead of his faceplate sliding back, Optimus would be wearing a helmet (so the blue head design and the faceplate are a removeable helmet) since I've always thought that most Optimus heads were knight like.

A concept I would love to see alongside a reinterpretation of Prime's as an order of Knights that are dwindling down to the point of being almost non-existent before the war.

but if he had a helmet to take off, underneath he would look like Stallone or Pascal

Maybe he'd look like robot Liam neeson with a mustache goatee combo lol

That could be a potential Thanos cross over but it still has some resemblance to Stallone Garry Chalk is never going to get to voice him again ...Adriaaaanatron!

blackeyedprime wrote:[spoiler][spoiler]You missed the only one scene that got me and it's in one of the earliest moments, poor Steel Jaw and recently I have no empathy.[/spoiler][/spoiler]

Ahh, see, I hadn't heard of that character before, so the brief glimpse you get didn't make sense to me. I'll need to go back and watch that again, now that I've searched him up on tfwiki.

blackeyedprime wrote:The characterisations were a bit disjointed, this happened with Jetfire after what he had been through in S1 didnt seem to follow on for this series. Then there was parts during a single episode where Optimus in particular went from acting one way to another scarcely a scene or two apart. Even Megs, bit of a difference between wanting to rip some one apart with their bare hands and then..erm...erm, yeagh. Even Bees full on autobot faction symbol appearance was kind of like something happened offscreen unless my eyes failed me on noticing details after taking a second to read a text.

It seemed to me like it was purposeful with Jetfire though, kind of like they dangled "hey Jetfire is actually more of a hero" in Siege and then you find out it's more like "nah he just chafes against anybody leading him" which I think is kinda good fleshing out.

I don't think your eyes failed you, Bee with the Auto faction was definitely forced...OP was standing there talking to him and didn't see the faction sticker until right at the end of the discussion...? Kinda dumb. For me, it's just another one of those things you kind of have to just ignore if you want to be able to enjoy the good parts of the show.

So I finally finished the series and it wasnt terrible. But it felt super random. It feels like a kid writing a story with no structure.

The autobots go looking for the all spark

And then they meet a mercenary

And then they meet a quintesson

And then the quintesson cuts all its heads

And then the autobots find an abandoned ship

And then they get atacked by Scorponok

And then Megatron comes

And then they all meet skylynx in the dead universe

And then Galvatron shows up

And then Unicron shows up

And then the Quintesson comes back

and then they come to earth and we see a dinosaur

the end.

My biggest pet peeve though was Prime's voice. The slowness that I complained about earlier got better (or it defeated me into acceptance, regardless its the same result), so I got to enjoy the decepticon main bots, like Shockwave, Megatron and Starscream. Megatron was great, always has been, even in Machinima. Don't know why he's easier to get right than others, but I'm happy for it. But Prime was bad. The character himself didn't do anything that I found all that heroic or important but his voice, dear lord they got the wrong person for the job. When he gets any bit of emotion it becomes a garbled mess. Since the show does a bunch of cost cutting measures, like have a the "camera" at a character's back when they are speaking, we get these moments where the voice feels so disjointed from the character it's supposed to come from. It's not that it just doesn't sound like Prime, it's that since the Peter Cullen impression is still happening in calmer moments, the other voice just seems to come out of freaken nowhere. Ironhide doesn't sound like Ironhide but at least the voice is consistent, so I'm ok with it. But Prime.. urgh

Anyways, another bit that I found just beyond dumb is at the end when there is an explosion and everyone is RUNNING away. You have Jetfire who can **** FLY, but is running instead. And worse since they take the time to show Chromia transforming to GTFO, we get a really hilarious cut from that scene to the rest of the bots just running away.

I get that you can't afford all the animation but at least write it so that you can work around those limitations.

There is one complaint people have that I find unfair though, the one where the show does not promote the toys out in 2020. It does. While not the same character model for all of them, there were lots of toys out in 2020 that are also in this show. Like Prime, Soundwave, Megatron, Bumblebee, Elita 1, Arcee, Wheeljack, Skylynx, Double dealer, the Quintesson, Starscream, the Coneheads, Bug Bite, Malborro Jack, Scorponok and we do indeed see a glimpse of Nemesis Prime, which is a light spoiler in a way.

And 2020's 2 big ticket items, Slylynx and Scorponok are given a rather big spotlight, so I think the show is not at fault in terms of promoting the toyline and vice versa.

william-james88 wrote:And then they meet a quintesson

And then the quintesson cuts all its heads

And then the Quintesson comes back

Honestly I was expecting the Quint to be the main antagonist force in the season, but that wasn't really the case sadly.

The face cutting thing should of been during the final couple episodes when they returned.

Overall,I liked Eathrise
Megatron's performace reminds of Animated with Corey Burton.
I hope Kingdom has more than 6 episodes,because not only we have to introduce the Beast Wars characters,but having also finish the previous plots threads.

Apparently Kingdom arrives May 30th ( Sunday odd)... but ok

https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2021/01/08/t ... -revealed/

o.supreme wrote:Apparently Kingdom arrives May 30th ( Sunday odd)... but ok

https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2021/01/08/t ... -revealed/

Considering their source was Wikipedia (who's source for the date isn't listed and most likely extrapolated it from the gap between siege and Earthrise), I'd take it with a huge grain of salt. That's why we never newsed it before. Netflix themselves will be the ones to reveal it.

Thanks to our own Dominus Prime, we've learned the release for the next and final portion of the War for Cybertron cartoon is coming up this summer! According to an article on Anime News Network, during Hasbro's recent Investor Day, a press release announced that War for Cybertron: Kingdom would be debuting on streaming service Netflix this July. No specific date for the release was given, but we imagine that we'll learn the date fairly soon, and we'll be able to find out the fate of the Autobots, Decepticons, Maximals and Predacons! The article can be read by clicking on the picture below.



Are you excited to see the conclusion of the War for Cybertron Trilogy? Let us know your thoughts and speculation about the upcoming WFC: Kingdom show below!

July 30th is a Friday, that's where my guess is. But sometimes, release patterns don't follow such logic. I personally am excited to see the conclusion. Just waiting for the wave of negativity however when hardcore BW fans see their favorite characters voices by other actors.