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[Deadput]

No humans makes sense in the right setting.
But when there's an actual WAR waged by extraterrestrials on Earth soil and not a single human delegation or army show up to intervene, it's there that my suspension of disbelief reach its limits.

For me, with Bayformers, it was the opposite. I grew up with Toho films. Humans are there to scream, run away and/or be ineffective military fodder. That normally ends up doing one of the two former options. Being active participants in an Alien war, which uses technology far more advanced than our own? I don't buy it for a second. Let alone when our technology can harm a giant alien robot

I on the other hand find it awfully boring when the Transformers couldn't be hurt by human weaponry, sure not like hand guns or anything, but a round from a tank is going to hurt literally anything that isn't at least a Combiner, let alone more brutal means of offensive like airstrikes, etc.

If humans can't hurt them, than that should mean that they couldn't even hurt each other.

Like if the Decepticons could just squash the military in a couple hours than what would ever be the point of them disguising each other and being Deceptive? It makes the story more interesting when the Decepticons actually have a good reason not to go all out.

It ended up being too far in the extreme in the Bay films, but the answer will never be to make them invincible to human stuff, because of the reasons I stated and it gives humans little relevance in the franchise that only works when their around, Transformers has never been at it's best with the absence of humans and never will.

Their Aliens, not gods.

[-Kanrabat-]

It's true that the Transformers NEEDS a reason to be Robots In Disguise. They should never be "invincible" but they could be killed by human weaponry if the firepower is high enough.
Also, appart for some plot armor, even a TF spaceship wouldn't be able to shake off a modern nuke.
As always, balance in powers is the best solution.

Another story aspect that is always ignored is the fact that the Earth has a huge and diverse biomass. What about all that water, bacteria, fungus, and other critters that could infect a robot in some serious capacity?
I'll be pointing out the first computer bug in humanity's history:

A shame that this story point is almost NEVER addressed in cross-worlds stories.

[Emerje]

More combat footage is seen in this Hasbro corporate reel video.

The uniform-wearing human woman is also seen using a laser gun of her own.

https://twitter.com/Hasbro/status/1494363619622064137

Don't we see that same shot in the teaser?

Some footage, but it is in a wider aspect so you can see more. Could that be our first glimpse at Megatron in the background?

Emerje

[AllNewSuperRobot]

If humans can't hurt them, than that should mean that they couldn't even hurt each other.

Except their weapons, are as highly advanced as they are. Human weapons in contrast, are primitive and mostly ballistic based. Ion Cannons, Particle Cannons, Fusion Cannons etc, etc are on another level to bullets, shells and missiles. It amounts to the evolutionary equivalent of medieval archers battling fighter jets.

A part of the fandom tends to forget the Transformers are highly advanced artificial alien life forms. Not Earth-based robots that morph into cars.

Like if the Decepticons could just squash the military in a couple hours than what would ever be the point of them disguising each other and being Deceptive? It makes the story more interesting when the Decepticons actually have a good reason not to go all out.

Infiltration. When IDW first started (and was good). It went into specifics on this. Cybertronians being 'Robots in disguise' isn't a method exclusive to Earth. It is a long term strategy employed where ever Transformers land. Because they typically have smaller numbers and fuelling concerns. It is never stated in any fiction to be due to fear.

Transformers has never been at it's best with the absence of humans and never will.

Agree to disagree on that one.

[Sabrblade]

Transformers has never been at it's best with the absence of humans and never will.

Agree to disagree on that one.

Beast Wars was not absent of humans.

[MaximalNui]

Not even 5 minutes out of 4 seasons.
Seriously?

At that point, yeah, that city is Squirrel City.

Those were just snippits I picked out from memory.

Plus, five minutes would take up half of a whole episode. That's expensive.

Nope, those were the only examples in the entire series. And you'll notice only the kid actually shows up: one video only has humans as offscreen voiceovers and all the others not even that - just Optimus and Megatron adressing social media networks with no reaction beyond online comments which could just as well be bots.

Honestly, my issue was never with not showing humans; it's with even bothering setting the series on present-day Earth if they're never going to meaningfully interact with humans. Why couldn't this be an alien planet, or another Cybertronian colony?

Transformers has never been at it's best with the absence of humans and never will.

Agree to disagree on that one.

Beast Wars was not absent of humans.

Those were five out of 52 episodes, and they're a lot closer to slightly smarter chimpanzees than actual humans. There's a reason they're called anthropoids and protohumans.

No humans makes sense in the right setting.
But when there's an actual WAR waged by extraterrestrials on Earth soil and not a single human delegation or army show up to intervene, it's there that my suspension of disbelief reach its limits.

For me, with Bayformers, it was the opposite. I grew up with Toho films. Humans are there to scream, run away and/or be ineffective military fodder. That normally ends up doing one of the two former options. Being active participants in an Alien war, which uses technology far more advanced than our own? I don't buy it for a second. Let alone when our technology can harm a giant alien robot

I on the other hand find it awfully boring when the Transformers couldn't be hurt by human weaponry, sure not like hand guns or anything, but a round from a tank is going to hurt literally anything that isn't at least a Combiner, let alone more brutal means of offensive like airstrikes, etc.

If humans can't hurt them, than that should mean that they couldn't even hurt each other.

Like if the Decepticons could just squash the military in a couple hours than what would ever be the point of them disguising each other and being Deceptive? It makes the story more interesting when the Decepticons actually have a good reason not to go all out.

It ended up being too far in the extreme in the Bay films, but the answer will never be to make them invincible to human stuff, because of the reasons I stated and it gives humans little relevance in the franchise that only works when their around, Transformers has never been at it's best with the absence of humans and never will.

Their Aliens, not gods.

If humans can't hurt them, than that should mean that they couldn't even hurt each other.

Except their weapons, are as highly advanced as they are. Human weapons in contrast, are primitive and mostly ballistic based. Ion Cannons, Particle Cannons, Fusion Cannons etc, etc are on another level to bullets, shells and missiles. It amounts to the evolutionary equivalent of medieval archers battling fighter jets.

A part of the fandom tends to forget the Transformers are highly advanced artificial alien life forms. Not Earth-based robots that morph into cars.

Like if the Decepticons could just squash the military in a couple hours than what would ever be the point of them disguising each other and being Deceptive? It makes the story more interesting when the Decepticons actually have a good reason not to go all out.

Infiltration. When IDW first started (and was good). It went into specifics on this. Cybertronians being 'Robots in disguise' isn't a method exclusive to Earth. It is a long term strategy employed where ever Transformers land. Because they typically have smaller numbers and fuelling concerns. It is never stated in any fiction to be due to fear.

Being more developed is indeed a massive advantage, but it isn't a guaranteed win. There's actually a lot of examples of lower-tech societies winning against higher-tech ones using guile, knowledge of the terrain and strategy (and playing a bit on the opponent's ego). One example from my country is Viriato winning several times against Roman legions with guerrilla tactics - usually leading them into canyons and valleys to throw massive boulders at them.

Besides, there's another aspect of humans to consider: we learn and adapt. Even the Toho films have them developing stuff like Mechagodzilla, The Oxygen Destroyer or the Gotengo. And then you have to consider the Autobots possibly sharing technology and helping humans, or merely humans studying leftovers from the latest battles. It'd be unrealistic for them to start as mere cannon fodder and stay as mere cannon fodder the whole run. And frankly, static characters that never learn, improve or adapt are just annoying to me, whether they're cannon fodder, comedic relief or Leeroy Jenkins.

Honestly, the first Bay movie actually showed a logical way for humans to gain an edge against Transformers: studying the remains left behind by injured Transformers, finding a weakness (extremely high temperatures that override the self-repairing metal) and exploiting it (using weaponry that can reach that temperature and focusing more on distracting the Decepticons while the Autobots do the actual kills)...too bad every other film completely tossed this aside as they seemed to injure Decepticons with average firearms and RoTF establishes the Autobots aren't sharing their combat technology. But still there were a few moments of logic, like in DoTM where they aimed at vital weakspots like joints and eyes.

Back to the topic at hand, though, does anyone else read the synopsis about "a new generation of Transformers caught between the Autobot/Decepticon war" and think back to the Mini-Cons of Armada?

[Sabrblade]

Honestly, my issue was never with not showing humans; it's with even bothering setting the series on present-day Earth if they're never going to meaningfully interact with humans. Why couldn't this be an alien planet, or another Cybertronian colony?

Though, we know the real reason the show had to be set on Earth: The backstory lore that Hasbro pushed on the Cyberverse people says that Earth is the planet the AllSpark landed on, so the show had to take place there until the AllSpark was found.

[-Kanrabat-]

Though, we know the real reason the show had to be set on Earth: The backstory lore that Hasbro pushed on the Cyberverse people says that Earth is the planet the AllSpark landed on, so the show had to take place there until the AllSpark was found.

This doesn't excuse that this executive directive didn't came with the budget that would make Earth a logical place with the required human interactions. It was a very, VERY stupid directive and it resulted in quite a mess. The All-Spark could have landed on Venus and it wouldn't have made any difference in the show.

Also, that 10 minutes format needs to stop. It just doesn't gives any time for any stories or intrigue to properly build up. Some arcs needs 2 or 3 episodes to conclude to make a proper "episode". I find that format extremely annoying.
So, yeah, I dropped Cyberverse at S02.

I just hope that the format of the Nic show will go back to a more normal half-hour shows. If the format is right and there's normal human interactions in that world, I may finally come back to a Transformers show after Prime.

[Sabrblade]

IIRC, EarthSpark is going back to the normal 22-minute episode runtime, yes.

Cyberverse was given no favors by Hasbro or any of its networks. It was originally supposed to have normal 22-minute-long episode runtimes, but somewhere along the way, someone higher up was like "Nah, bro, ten minutes!" It's as if they were like "We want you to make a show for us but we're gonna be super cheap about how much money we give you to make it," among with many other constraints like how the first season was required to tie-in with the Bumblebee movie by having Bee as the star, voiceless, and amnesiac (after season 1, they deliberately focused less and less on Bumblebee, even when Hasbro added his name to the show's title in seasons 3-4; the show's writers basically ignored that and pretended it was still just "Transformers: Cyberverse" instead of "Transformers Bumblebee: Cyberverse Adventures").

[-Kanrabat-]

IIRC, EarthSpark is going back to the normal 22-minute episode runtime, yes.

Cyberverse was given no favors by Hasbro or any of its networks. It was originally supposed to have normal 22-minute-long episode runtimes, but somewhere along the way, someone higher up was like "Nah, bro, ten minutes!" It's as if they were like "We want you to make a show for us but we're gonna be super cheap about how much money we give you to make it," among with many other constraints like how the first season was required to tie-in with the Bumblebee movie by having Bee as the star, voiceless, and amnesiac (after season 1, they deliberately focused less and less on Bumblebee, even when Hasbro added his name to the show's title in seasons 3-4; the show's writers basically ignored that and pretended it was still just "Transformers: Cyberverse" instead of "Transformers Bumblebee: Cyberverse Adventures").

My guess is those suits where still high on the abysmal Machimina Combiner Wars and Co series. Those shows must have made some money so they thought it was a good idea to continue the same thing with Cyberverse.

My guess is with Cyberverse, the feedback they got finally brought Transformers cartoons back to form with that new Nic show.

I'll be waiting with my bucket of popcorn, but that popcorn will be sceptical flavored for now.

[D-Maximal_Primal]

That might have been the stupidest round of comments I have read in the cartoons thread in the past few years.

Cyberverse had almost no budget, and considering they made quite possibly one of the best TF shows that reached such a broad range of topics, characters old and new, storylines old and new, and managed to get 3 seasons plus 2 season 4 "movies" as it were is quite the story.

The budget was important. Very important. i think the series didn't suffer for the lack of on screen humans or human buddies. They met the mandates and made something truly special. Season 3 in particular will go down as one of the best seasons of any TF cartoon. I'd argue that outside of animated Season 3, Prime season 2, and Beast Wars season 2, it beats all other TF show seasons.

As for this new show, the new characters are very exciting, and I am eager to know more

[TulioDude]

I agree with other users in this topic,in that humans in Transformers shouldn't be dismissed.
They serve to the thematic purpose of highlighting the differences between the Autobots and the Decepticons.While the Decepticons in general see the humans as disposable and weak,the Autobots and humans try to understand one another,and by working together manage to achieve what neither could on their own.

Besides, there's another aspect of humans to consider: we learn and adapt. Even the Toho films have them developing stuff like Mechagodzilla, The Oxygen Destroyer or the Gotengo. And then you have to consider the Autobots possibly sharing technology and helping humans, or merely humans studying leftovers from the latest battles. It'd be unrealistic for them to start as mere cannon fodder and stay as mere cannon fodder the whole run. And frankly, static characters that never learn, improve or adapt are just annoying to me, whether they're cannon fodder, comedic relief or Leeroy Jenkins.

I agree.Even the Godzillas films have humans play important parts of the plot.

Back to the topic at hand, though, does anyone else read the synopsis about "a new generation of Transformers caught between the Autobot/Decepticon war" and think back to the Mini-Cons of Armada?

Yeah,sounds a neat callback.Refugees from the Autobots/Decepticon war can be really interesting if done right.

[Sabrblade]

Well, since they couldn't afford to have humans but had to set the show on Earth until the Allspark was found, Cyberverse promptly sent its cast rocketing off Earth headed back to Cybertron just as soon as the Autobots finally got their hands on the Allspark in season 2. No need for them to stick around on Earth anymore once the show was no longer anchored to that planet by Hasbro's master lore.

[william-james88]

The Transformers Earthspark show will be starting in the second half of the year. We had very brief clips but now we have a promotional image that really gives us a good look at the designs. We have the two new robots who get adopted by humans along with Optimus and Bumblebee. Optimus reuses the evergreen design (afterall, that's the whole point of an evergreen design) and while Bumblebee does as well, it is a bit more stylized. It seems to borrow a lot from the Generations Bumblebee toy we had which was a G1-ified version of his muscle car look (which the evergreen design borrowed quite a bit from).

Of course promoting this series with Bumblebee and Prime make perfect sense, those are the characters/toys that sell best these days to younger kids, who are the target audience of this show.




Transformers Generations Bumblebee Gallery

[Slashercon]

Not going to lie, this promo art looks kinda ugly. The few seconds of footage that was shown a while back definitely looked better than this. Still curious about the show but this picture doesn't do it any favors.

[Sabrblade]

Not going to lie, this promo art looks kinda ugly. The few seconds of footage that was shown a while back definitely looked better than this. Still curious about the show but this picture doesn't do it any favors.

To be completely honest, the boy in the center is the one who probably looks the best in this pic.

[Evil Eye]

Yikes. Not looking so good.

[-Kanrabat-]

So they went with the T-30 Bee design. Interesting.
Let's hope the new toy will be better than that old horrible mess.

As for the show itself, I hope for something as great as Prime.

[Randomhero]

It’s based more on the evergreen/cyberverse design than the T30. You can even see the windshield peeking in the promo picture.

[Sabrblade]

It’s based more on the evergreen/cyberverse design than the T30. You can even see the windshield peeking in the promo picture.

Indeed.




Thrilling 30 Bumblebee was based on Guido Guidi's interpretation of Chee Yang Ong's design for Bumblebee's upgraded Earth body in the 2009 IDW ongoing comic.

[william-james88]

It’s based more on the evergreen/cyberverse design than the T30. You can even see the windshield peeking in the promo picture.

Thanks, I didnt catch the windshield

[o.supreme]

Not going to lie, this promo art looks kinda ugly. The few seconds of footage that was shown a while back definitely looked better than this. Still curious about the show but this picture doesn't do it any favors.

To be completely honest, the boy in the center is the one who probably looks the best in this pic.

Looks like Darius from Jurassic Park Camp Cretaceous

[D-Maximal_Primal]

Kinda funny that Bumblebee looks to be a sports car now, something like a Lamborghini

[AllNewSuperRobot]

Not going to lie, this promo art looks kinda ugly. The few seconds of footage that was shown a while back definitely looked better than this. Still curious about the show but this picture doesn't do it any favors.

To be completely honest, the boy in the center is the one who probably looks the best in this pic.

Agreed. I think the kids look better than the bots. Prime especially.. yikes

The two new bots, really wear their Nick Roche aesthetic with pride too.

[MaximalNui]

I'm really curious about those metal "arms" the kids have; especially since I rewatched the previous images and freezeframes and, aside from this one, they always have them on.


Are they armor? An actual part of their body? Is it somehow related to the titular ""Earthspark" and the new bots, like the link Rad and friends had with the Mini-Cons or the Masterforce's Master-Braces?

Also, does anyone know yet if the show is Paramount+ exclusive? I hope not; I don't think I can afford another streaming subscription.