The Energon Pub

Gauntlet101010 wrote:Ratchet and Lockdown really crib from Animated. If you're gonna crib, may as well crib from the greats! Although it's really watered down and rushed. Can't do much with three minute toy commercials.

Yeah, Cyber Missions was made to advertise the toys of the N.E.S.T. Global Alliance subline of the Revenge of the Fallen toyline and the 2010 "Transformers" toyline before it became Reveal the Shield (plus the Power Core Combiners line in the sole case of Smolder and Chopster).

The Deluxe ROTF Lockdown and Ratchet toys were designed to be able to share the same weapon accessory, in a direct homage to their relationship in Animated.






Hasbro did this Animated homage with these toys because of how they were right at the beginning of their Aligned mentality, when they wanted lore consistency across the board.

Before TF: Prime came out and did all that it did to establish its own identity, Hasbro originally wanted the 2007 movie to be the cornerstone of the lore written in the Binder of Revelation and have every new major TF media going forward revolve around that movie's story, aesthetic consistency be darned. This is why the Prime cartoon never told its own story of how the Transformers first came to Earth, as Hasbro wanted the 2007 movie to be the definitive version of that story, with Prime being set three years later.

Of course, while Prime was similar in tone and feel to the first movie, it made zero efforts to line up with the exact events of either that movie or ROTF, which was still good enough for Hasbro since all they cared about was everything passing a "squint test". But, that isn't to say that the live-action movies are also a part of Aligned, no, that was immediately abandoned once Prime took off and did its own thing separately from the movies. And there was no way Hasbro could have even controlled the stories crafted by Paramount for the sequel films.

Gauntlet101010 wrote:"Give me your face" Optimus shows Megatron mercy twice! But I guess the war can't end decicively in a friggin' 3 minute webtoon!

At the time these came out, Cyber Missions was meant to be a bridge between ROTF and DOTM, so they needed to have Megatron survive so he could go into hiding, lining up with his appearance in DOTM. It also happened to line up with the tie-in comics published by IDW that expanded the universe of the live-action movies (that is, until AOE came out and said "Nah, only the movies matter, forget all those comics and other tie-in stuff").

Gauntlet101010 wrote:I'm not kidding about evil Protectobots. I'd be down. But I wouldn't want them as reskins of the G1s either. I would want a better version of THIS Smolder, just like I like movie 1 Baricade. Reskinned Prowl will not do.

A routine patrol with four Cons in stasis
Years later awoke in the strangest of places
Earth was their home now and in addition
Lord Megatron gave them this mission

Conquer the humans, punish, enslave
Scour their world for what we crave
Retrieving the AllSpark is your objective
Use whatever means prove most effective

Rescue Cons, rise to the rescue!
Power we need, AllSpark indeed!
Rescue Cons, rise to the rescue!
Rescue Cons

While Sector Seven chases 'Bots in Disguise,
Rescue Cons have their eyes on the prize!
Rescue Cons, rise to the rescue!
Rescue Cons!

Gauntlet101010 wrote:No pretense is made about Bee'not havign a voice. I guess that's the budget you get.

And it is radio-speaking Movie Bee, after all.

Gauntlet101010 wrote:Cyber Missions. It's bad. But watch the Smolder one (9).

Now what's next? Hopefully, something good.

(checks notes) Cyberverse. So, a proper show. No idea how good it is. I think I watched the first episode when it first came out, but remember none of it.

We have more for a team of Rescue Cons! Barricade, Smolder, Flatline, and Scrapper ... we need a Blades either way, though.

Gauntlet101010 wrote:(checks notes) Cyberverse. So, a proper show. No idea how good it is. I think I watched the first episode when it first came out, but remember none of it.

A few words of warning that are helpful before going into Cyberverse.

Season 1 is very different from the later seasons. It suffered from mandates the most, forcing it to include elements that matched with the contemporary Bumblebee movie, such as Bee not only having a radio voice but also amnesia. This led to the first season having an anthology style format with lots of mental flashbacks that told the backstory of this world in a not-so-chronological order. This put many viewers off the show, but most who stuck with it agree that the first season improves dramatically around Episode 10.

By the start of Season 2, however, all of these hindering elements were discarded for the better, which allowed for more straightforward storytelling.

There is a major time skip between Seasons 1 and 2, which felt really jarring upon first viewing without knowing beforehand. The video game Transformers: Battlegrounds serves to pick up right where Season 1's finale left off, but that game was made without knowing what Season 2 was going to be like, so while it attempted to fill in that gap between the two, it ultimately doesn't fit with the rest of the show after Season 1 and can instead be considered more of a "what if" alternate take on the world of Cyberverse post-Season 1.

Season 2's proper finale is actually the first four episodes of Season 3. For some reason, a decision was made to hold off on resolving Season 2's season-long story until the start of Season 3, leaving Season 2 ending on a more ordinary episode without proper resolution until Season 3's opening four-parter. Thus, there is another time skip between Season 3's fourth and fifth episodes, but it's not as severe as the time skip between Season 1 and 2.

Gauntlet101010 wrote:We have more for a team of Rescue Cons! Barricade, Smolder, Flatline, and Scrapper ... we need a Blades either way, though.

Heatwave: PCC Smolder
Chase: Movie Barricade
Blades: 2010 Tailwhip
Boulder: PCC Steamhammer

(I went with all Movieverse Decepticons for further irony since the Movie 'Cons are some of the most vicious and monstrous Decepticons )

hah hah hah, good pics! I think this is something the Bay toyline did right - civilian Decepticons.

Cyberverse

Overall - Wow, I liked this a LOT more than I thought I would! After a long time of no real villains and working with humans a show focusing on fighting Decepticons was sorely missing. I wound up blowing through this series.

Immediate impression: Bumblebee is a brain-damaged, annoying moron. Really not used to seeing him this way. In the first episode it strikes me that this might be a more refined version of his G1 Wreck-Gar was supposed to have talked. The cast back then didn't figure it out, but the movie guys did by having Bee directly "talk TV". Glad we didn't get it, because it's the most annoying thing ever!

Season 1 is very samey. Those memory lane trips are really repetitive. If he can access then via a cord, shouldn't he just remember them? But then there'd be no show. Although it's kinda nice to see life before the war. It's nice to see the friendly dynamic between bots and cons (beyond Megs and Optimus, we get that elsewhere a lot). I do like that Cube is carried over from Academy. I can see why they call it "Cyberworld" now (I had no idea since I only knew of this franchise from the toyline before). I like the dynamic between Windblade and Bee a lot, but I found myself missing other characters. While it's nice to See Lugnut, Lockdown, and Slipstream again they're very much downgrades from their Animated counterparts.

This season is a bit ... meh. It's fine.

Season 2 seems to skip a LOT! It's like a totally different show. All of a sudden Bumblebee has his voice back, his memory isn't an issue anymore, and the Autobots are totally back in fighting form. It's like G1 with a new coat of paint, and I guess everyone's an influencer now. But only for one episode? And we don't get to see how any of it happened! It's ... kinda wierd. After so long spent with RID and Rescue Bots, it felt a bit jarring to see Autobots transforing in front of humans. It's actually been so long that I forgot that in most cases it's no big deal at all, lol.

The gimmick of combining with random vehicles is very ... random. I remember the toys in stores and found the idea as strange as some of the Minicon pairings in Armada and it's no less perplexing now that I'm watching the cartoon. "Hey, let me combine with this random, unrelated vehicle. INCREDIBLE POWER!!!" And Shockwave is right. Seekers really are dumb. None of them are actually listening to Starscream's legit insane ramblings. It's also so wierd that the Nemesis is right out in the open. But I guess here the Decepitcons are just focused on the Autobots and not on Earth at all. Each episode is only 10 mins long, after all. Still, though, no human allies make it feel like such a confined and isolated conflict.

Season 3 - That opener! My boy Hot Rod has gone from a regular cast member to goated! Shockwave actually sacrificing himself!? A turncoat Drift!? And no more Cheetor!? So dark! What a turnaround from Season 1! The setup is a lot like TF One. I hate the way they pronounce "Quintessons." Why are the Shakticons following them in this version? Honestly, this is like a full length movie over a single show. And then you have the "End of the Universe" Aw, man. Kup's narration really makes the momentum grind to a halt. I hate it. It's quite the reveal that Megatron somehow gained a Matrix. Woulda been nice to see that. I don't think Mac had to go out that way ... seems like he could have just ... avoided that blast. Easily. And, after this, Cybertron is the old west!? The episodes right after "end of the universe" really lose their steam. By ... a LOT. Wow. All the buildup to AU Megatron doesn't lead to a whole lot. I would have thought he'd do more, but he really doesn't. In the end, it was a deuce ex machina that saved the day? I dunno. Seems weak.

Season 3 actually has two deuce ex machinas. One where Megatron returns with a Matrix of his own to save everyone and then Windblade just so happens to be in the Matrix so everyone can defeat AU Megatron. Convenient.

Season 4 - "Invisible bird"? Did they run out of budget? Nobody comments on the Merc faction, eh? I guess that faction's not worth a comment ... The scene where the Mecs have fun while everyone is time locked is nice. The scened where Volcanicus is training reminds me of RiD where they weren't immediately good at combining. But it's wierd that they built this obsticle course and had time to train as the bad guys looted. Also, shouldn't the isle of Onyx Prime have been depowered like the rest of Cybertron or soemthing? Seems like it shoudld have been. Or long found in Tarn's dimension.

In the end I was more satisfied with how this ended than Season 3. Here Soundwave's win felt a lot more earned. Nobody had to swoop in to save the day. Soundwave bided his time to stay in place. Then blew it by loudly announcing his deception. But then he won! I actually felt pretty down about his death, though. Totally earned. As was Tarn's heelturn. Gotta say, it's unclear whether the Perfect Decepticons killed AU Megatron or what. It seemed like they might have? Because where is he? I guess that would have been fodder for a seadon 5 should it have happened.

So, I liked the series a lot. Overall, however, I think some things are really glazed over. We meet Skybite. And this is probably the most dangerous verion of Skybite if we just go by what the show says about him. Destoying plants and civilisations. By rights the Autobots shouldn't be cool with him EVER. But he's there at the end. Palling around with white knight Silverbolt, putting their "grudge" aside. And the later Dinobots lose their ENTIRE PLANET! And it's just not a big deal to them. Sure they're there for revenge, but they're also really happy to meet the legendary Grimlock! In fact the Mercs who destroy their planet escape, so ... that's cool, right?

I do think some episodes could have benefited from being longer than 10 minutes. There were times when I felt explanations could have been beefed up. Season 1 was the season that benefitted most from the shoter time span since I wanted to get through those ones quickest. But the rest left me with more questions than answers.

Fave Characters:

Hot Rod - Wow, did he get buildup! I was just happy he was here when he first appeared. I collect Hot Rods, so I knew he was present. And I liked him well enough as a carryover from his "fun loving" role in the movie. But his role in Season 3 was amazing! Holy crap! Lately they've had Bumblebee step intot he leadership role, so it was nice to see Hot Rod have his ole role back while still having BB do his thing.

Soundwave - He wasn't gonna make the list as favourite con, but his final sacrifice put him over the edge. He kind of eats Blaster's lunch by using a lot of beats over the course of the show. And I think they overuse his "Soundwave superior" quote. But he really steps up in this show. I do like how he goes from kind of generic Soundwave to genuinely interested in peace badass. Like Hot Rod all of his moments really come from Season 3 onwards.

Other character notes:

This time I had other notes. They definately made thigs different!

Grimlock is so .... different! He really reminds me of Beast Wars Silverbolt. I think it's a bit too different for me. I dunno. Swoop is similarily different. But I guess she couldn't be as dim as G1 or the plot would have nowhere to go. I thought the mini arc of him having to lead a team of recruits had potential, but all he had to do was learn a fraction of patience. I kind of wish we got a really good version of this combiner, though.

Shadowstriker - really cool character. Really love her origin. Wish we had a good version of her toy. I love how BB messed her up and created his own nemesis. Reminds me of Wasp, expcept this one was less on BB(she was trying to kill him). Only ... she just sort of dropped her grudge. I think a full episode dedicated to it woud have been great, but it's just not there. She was almost my fav Decepticon ahead of Soundwave.

Wildwheel - I have his toy because I thought it was cool. Now that I saw his episode he kinda comes off as a whiner. Like ... I guess it never occurred to him that all the other Autobots were in stasis for all those years? What's he gonna do when he realizes that he abandoned them and not the other way around? And what's a couple thousand years to a TF anyway? I get to the end and nobody ever tells him OP and the rest were deactivated? Geez.

Megatron - This series Megatron seems like the biggest asshole of all the Megatrons. He's literally willing to destroy all life on Cybertron if he can't control the Allspark. He says "piss off" when the Quints come only then to go to the multiverse when the opportunity presents itself. After that his AU counterpart is willing to kill all the mainline Decepticons. What a **** jackass! Why is anyone following this guy? He's worse than G1 Scorpinok! At least Cybertron isn't his home planet ... this asshat constantly betrays his own guys. I guess the only pass is nobody's really there to witness it. Is it any wonder peace is achieved shortly after he's gone?

Gauntlet101010 wrote:I wound up blowing through this series.

I'll say! You really finished all four seasons in under a month!?

Gauntlet101010 wrote:Immediate impression: Bumblebee is a brain-damaged, annoying moron. Really not used to seeing him this way. In the first episode it strikes me that this might be a more refined version of his G1 Wreck-Gar was supposed to have talked. The cast back then didn't figure it out, but the movie guys did by having Bee directly "talk TV". Glad we didn't get it, because it's the most annoying thing ever!

Basically, Jeremy Levy had to do what Robin Williams and Dan Castellaneta had to do when voicing the Genie in the Aladdin movies and TV series, and what Frank Welker had to do when voicing Chameleon in the Mighty Ducks animated series. Both Genie and Chameleon had the main gimmick of doing celebrity voice impressions as part of their personalities. But in Bumblebee's case, Levy wasn't tasked with doing exact impressions, but instead had to merely seem like he was since all the radio-speak had to be made up from the ground up, with Levy having to make all of those radio voice clips sound unique from each other. That's no easy feat, especially when none of the clips were meant to sound like real voice impressions. Levy had to come up with all the voices by himself with little direction, which takes a LOT of improvisation and range to pull off. Giving Bumblebee a radio voice with no actual radio clips is always going to be an uphill challenge, so it's really something when it's all laid on the shoulders of a single actor instead of using multiple different actors like Cyber Missions did.

Gauntlet101010 wrote:Those memory lane trips are really repetitive. If he can access then via a cord, shouldn't he just remember them?

He had amnesia. The memories were buried within his subconscious mind. Easily-recalled memories are in the conscious mind.

Gauntlet101010 wrote:I do like that Cube is carried over from Academy.

Actually, it was the opposite. Cube was created for Cyberverse and carried over to Academy. Cyberverse started airing before Academy did.

Gauntlet101010 wrote:I can see why they call it "Cyberworld" now (I had no idea since I only knew of this franchise from the toyline before).

Huh?

Gauntlet101010 wrote:I like the dynamic between Windblade and Bee a lot, but I found myself missing other characters. While it's nice to See Lugnut, Lockdown, and Slipstream again they're very much downgrades from their Animated counterparts.

Clobber, not Lugnut (Hasbro was very insistent on not calling her "Lugnut", despite the presence of other gender-bent characters keeping their familiar names).

Gauntlet101010 wrote:I hate the way they pronounce "Quintessons."

That one is theorized to be related to how so much of this show's production was done in Ireland. For some reason, a number of UK and Irish people pronounce "Quintesson" like the word "Quintessence" rather than how it was pronounced in the G1 cartoon. Most prominently, Simon Furman says it like how it's said in this show, and he's been saying it that way for many years since long before this show ever existed.

It might have something to do with how little the G1 cartoon actually aired on TV in that part of the world, which led to the Marvel G1 comics becoming the dominate G1 Transformers media in the 1980s, and when the Quintessons debuted in the Marvel UK comics, the third season of the G1 cartoon wasn't on TV regularly enough to tell people that "Quintesson" is pronounced as "Quintess-SAHN" rather than "Quin-TESSIN".

Gauntlet101010 wrote:Why are the Shakticons following them in this version?

That is a little weird, yes, after seeing the Sharkticon homeworld episode in Season 2. And especially after the Season 2 Sharkticons were an all-new design while the ones working for the Quints in Season 3 are more G1-like in design. Best guess that most have speculated is that the ones seen in Season 3 are a different breed that were either created directly by the Quints to serve them, or were captured, thoroughly brainwashed, and enslaved by the Quints.

Gauntlet101010 wrote:All the buildup to AU Megatron doesn't lead to a whole lot. I would have thought he'd do more, but he really doesn't. In the end, it was a deuce ex machina that saved the day? I dunno. Seems weak.

Yeah, Megatron X's story was very rushed. It was hoped that he would return as the main antagonist of the second Season 4 special, but instead we got someone else from his home dimension.

Gauntlet101010 wrote:We meet Skybite. And this is probably the most dangerous verion of Skybite if we just go by what the show says about him.

And he sounds like Skeletor!

Gauntlet101010 wrote:But he's there at the end. Palling around with white knight Silverbolt, putting their "grudge" aside.

Jetfire, not Silverbolt.

Gauntlet101010 wrote:Hot Rod - Wow, did he get buildup! I was just happy he was here when he first appeared. I collect Hot Rods, so I knew he was present. And I liked him well enough as a carryover from his "fun loving" role in the movie. But his role in Season 3 was amazing! Holy crap! Lately they've had Bumblebee step intot he leadership role, so it was nice to see Hot Rod have his ole role back while still having BB do his thing.

Yeah, and for this version of Hot Rod, they wanted to try doing something different with him than just the usual Rodimus Prime route, to make him stand out from other depictions of Hot Rod.

I think it's called Cyberworld because, in Season 1, much of it is contained within the "world" of BB's memories. So it's a "Cyberworld" of sorts. You lose that in Season 2, but you get it back in Season 3 where everyone's trapped in a "Cyberworld". You don't need them in a parade. But it's there anyway.

Clobber may have has a name change, but we know who she's based on. I do like her character development throughout the series too. That's a real highlight of this show. The way small characters learn to like the other side.

It's another reason I wish we had longer episodes. A fuller one for Clobber would have been welcome.

Gauntlet101010 wrote:I think it's called Cyberworld because, in Season 1, much of it is contained within the "world" of BB's memories. So it's a "Cyberworld" of sorts. You lose that in Season 2, but you get it back in Season 3 where everyone's trapped in a "Cyberworld". You don't need them in a parade. But it's there anyway.

But the show is called Cyberverse.

And the IRL reason for that is because, at the time Hasbro was coming up with the toyline, they didn't know what to call it, and so just picked the name from the preexisting trademarks they already had in their ownership, recycling the name from the subline of Legion class and Commander class DOTM and Prime toys and playsets. It was a matter of trademark convenience more than anything creative.

Gauntlet101010 wrote:Clobber may have has a name change, but we know who she's based on. I do like her character development throughout the series too. That's a real highlight of this show. The way small characters learn to like the other side.

It's also neat that they gave her a different altmode from Lugnut. A hover tank instead of a bomber plane. Makes Clobber more distinguished from Lugnut as her own character.

Ok, "universe" instead of "world". Same sort of deal. BB's head is both a "universe" and "cyber". I get that it's a recycled trademark, but I can see where the roots of the show are.