Posted by Whifflefire
Fri Jul 30, 2021 4:30 pm
Motto:
""From Primus Every Help""
Weapon:
Gattling Gun
Watched it first thing last night after I came home. I have to say, I wasn't disappointed.
Spoiler bar just in case.
The way the wove the basic plot of Beast Wars with the main storyline was well executed, and enough time was given to the Maximals and Predacons where they had plenty of focus of their own without overshadowing the Autobots and Decepticons. The Predacons especially were treated with respect to their original incarnations while creatively incorporating their arcs into the show's plot. I also liked how, as with Earthrise, the lower-tier characters (Hound, Prowl, Astrotrain, etc.) still got a couple of character moments and action scenes of their own. Really only Sideswipe was neglected, but at least his hallucination of Sunstreaker was a subtle but touching hint of backstory, and it was pretty funny when Airrazor couldn't name-check him.
Speaking of humour, This series' jokes were much improved, creating moments of levity without disrupting the tone or flow of the situation. There were even a few good visual comedy moments, like Rattrap's scurrying through the Nemesis. As one of the common criticisms of Siege was that it was too melodramatic, that Earthrise and Kingdom gradually improved on the balance between seriousness and humour makes up for it a bit.
The voice acting was also greatly improved, although still the series' most detracting quality. Most of the beast characters sounded great, especially Blackarachnia, Rattrap, Airrazor, and Dinobot, although hearing Dinobot and Tigatron, one must wonder why they did not switch voice actors. Beast Megatron's voice may irritate some, but at least it was distinct and not another generic growly baritone. Beast Megs is supposed to be theatrical, so this incarnation's haughty delivery doesn't bother me.
Primal's voice didn't bother me either, but his obnoxious attitude was too blatant to forgive sometimes.
I don't think the show ever expected to match Code of Hero, but I think it handled Dinobot very well. His defection subplot featured some of the best dialogue in the series, and having Airrazor be the catalyst for his turn was a nice way to make this version unique while also being a clever meta-reference to the fact that those two never interacted at all in Beast Wars. Dinobot's final battle was also enjoyable, although I wish his fight with Soundwave lasted longer, that one scene could have justified the entire series had it not been cut so short. But Dinobot besting both Megatrons and saving the Matrix? C'mon, you loved it. His death scene was also surprisingly touching, referencing CoH without undeservedly copying it, and securing the Autobots the advantage they needed. His spirit returning to help Primal was weird, but it was a sweet moment when he recognizes Dinobot's spark ascending. The only thing that really bothered me about his death scene was Primal's responding to Dinobot's question about acceptance with "Yes. But you would have made a terrible Maximal". Especially being the last thing he heard? Ouch! It seemed like there should have been another part to that sentence, that reassured Dinobot that his joining their team would not mean he would have had to abandon his Predacon heritage (as was true in BW), but it sounded more like Pimal was telling him "I would have let you in, but I wouldn't have liked you." Other than that, I was sold on Dinobot's role in the show.
My biggest disappointment with Kingdom is the confirmation that the Cybertron-based cast were all killed, thus rendering half of Earthrise kind of pointless. I had a theory that with the introduction of time-travel, the Autobots might have found a way to return to their time just before the apparent deaths of Elita and Co. and rescue them, since their plot ended on a cliffhanger. With their fates kind of ambiguous, it would have been a brilliant way to resolve that ending and the trilogy with all of the characters reuniting. The series had been really good at not wasting its cast, that it chose 'total annihilation' as the end of this part of the story is an underwhelming and unfortunate conclusion.
Ultimately, I enjoyed the WFC Trilogy. It had great ideas and brought together many different parts of the franchise's lore in interesting ways, even if it was let down a bit by the voice acting and structure. But overall a solid entry into Transformers history in support of one of the greatest toylines we've ever had. 'B' for the trilogy at whole and B+ for Kingdom itself.
