That's cuz Animated wanted to portray the Decepticons as unrealistically brutish juggernauts that needed multiple enemies in order to bring down just one, whereas Prime went the angle of making both sides be battle hardened war veterans more on an even level of size and physical fighting prowess. The latter is the more realistic one since that's how it is with soldiers in real life. Otherwise, the United States military would have fought against ogres and trolls instead of humans back in every war we've fought in.SlyTF1 wrote:Still, I felt like they were a valid threat.
The same could be said for every Decepticon who mattered. Those who died in the show were either unimportant plot devices or (in cases like Dreadwing and Megatron) at the end of their stories and at the necessary point for their lives to reach their end.SlyTF1 wrote:In Prime, there was hardly ever a sense of urgency. Every Autobot felt like they were being protected by the integrity of the writers. It never felt "real". It was always like there was something at the last moment to save every Autobot, every single time.
Starscream, Knock Out, Airachnid, Shockwave, Soundwave, and Megatron (till the final episode) were no less safe than any of the main Autobots.
Skyquake, Makeshift, Hardshell, and eventually Breakdown were all no more important than Cliffjumper, all serving as sacrificial lambs for the sake of the plot rather than being actual characters in their own right (minus Breakdown, who did get some character focus before he was axed).
Dreadwing is the only character in this show who received a meaningful demise.
That was Hasbro's fault (the toy company, rather than the studio). They sprung the whole Predacons deal on the writers about midway through season 2, forcing the writers to take nearly everything they had planned out ahead for the show and condense/cut it all down to wrap up at the end of the season, so as to make room for the Predacon stuff in season 3. This resulted in things like Bulkhead's injury being put on fast forward, MECH's storyline being quickly disposed of, and nearly everything that the episode called "Armada" featured being wrapped up in that one go.SlyTF1 wrote:Even when Bulkhead was injured, it only took like 3 episodes until he was back to normal.
In other words, the rushed feeling of the second half of season 2 was all due to the higher ups wanting "to sell toys".