by Sabrblade » Wed Dec 18, 2013 3:54 pm
- Motto: "Can't do a job halfway. What's worth doing is worth doing well, I say."
- Weapon: Saber Blade
The Good:
- We get a near-complete general overview of a history largely untold, spanning the very beginning to all that is known in the present ("Predacons Rising"), with some fascinating concepts thrown into the mix (among others not-so-fascinating, but we'll get there).
- The artwork is GORGEOUS. Easily the best part about this thing.
- We're actually given insight into Megatron's reasoning for his decision to stop pursuing a life of villainy as seen in "Predacons Rising". There's an entire section that reveals what all was going on through Megatron's mind as he was recovering from the eternal torture Unicron inflicted upon him.
- Some of the 13 Primes are quite decent dudes with interesting traits and abilities. Liege Maximo, despite being a schemer, is straight up Tom Hiddleston's Loki and was an entertaining character before his downfall.
- Revelations to some unanswered questions were given, such as the identity of the dead Prime Megatron stole the arm of in TF: Prime, what happened to the Predacons in the past, why Thundertron hates Cybertronians, what brought about the end of the Golden Age, and more.
- Some small bits of humor were subtly inserted and added a nice touch.
- Despite his newly-revealed heritage, Orion Pax is still a very likable character, with his portrayal evocative of how he was in both the Exodus novel and the "Orion Pax" three-part episode of the Prime cartoon.
- New characters with all new names are given prominent positions and authorities, instead of relegating all the important things to characters of existing names.
And the not-so-good:
- The mistreatment of Solus Prime as a character.
- Making Optimus Prime be one of the 13 Primes.
- The War of the Primes was less of a war and more just petty disagreements.
- Prima was a pompous, arrogant jerk.
- Megatronus contrary to all expectations, did not turn evil, but instead was just bitter and petty. His becoming "The Fallen" was barely anything at all. There was no metamorphosis or anything of the sort. He just declared himself that after feeling guilty about his bad behavior (yeah, the guy who represented evil was given a conscious). And his leaving the others was done on good terms, with him willingly surrendering the Requiem Blaster to the others and him wanting to go out and help other races in the cosmos for their benefit. So... why does everything else pertaining to The Fallen paint him up as this super dark embodiment of all things evil like Unicron if they ultimately didn't go that route for him?
- The fates of several of the Primes are never given. The book just stops mentioning them at some point until Alpha Trion and Optimus speak of them later as though they no longer exist.
- Continuity Snarls and inconsistencies with EVERYTHING in the Aligned Continuity.Seriously, it's like they didn't even bother to look back at any of the games, novels, cartoons, or comics that had come before this, and were instead just playing this by memory. They get most of the events of each right, but they're either in the wrong chronological order, or retconned into being false, or just flat out contradicted altogether.
The caste system exists long before the Golden Age as a product of the Quintessons' rule instead of marking the end of the Golden Age.
The whole of Fall of Cybertron (comics and game) is pretty much reworked entirely, with the Dinobots' backstory being redone outside of the one fact that Shockwave rebuilt the Light Strike Coalition, and with Metroplex given an entirely different role and set of circumstances from how he appeared in the game.
Even the Prime cartoon gets contradicted by claiming that the Nemesis crashed into Earth right after "Darkness Rising" and Unicron was awoken by the constant use of space bridge/GroundBridge technology and relic hunts (which hadn't happened yet outside of two or three cases) instead of by the planetary alignment. Prowl, who never appeared in the cartoon, is also mentioned as being among the Autobots seen in the "Predacons Rising" events. Optimus also doesn't know when, why, and how there are dead Cybertronians on Earth even though he was the one who explained all that in the show.
- Some of the artwork was inconsistent with existing fiction.We see Optimus and Bumblebee in their Binder bodies and Ratchet in his WFC body in artwork pertaining to Earth-based events from TF: Prime episodes. And we see some cases of character in Earthen bodies during the ancient past on Cybertron.
The book even contradicts itself at points, like saying at one point that the Iacon Relics were launched during the Great War, then later saying they were launched during the Golden Age.
- A few spelling/grammar errors, but I think I only spotted four of these, so this is a very minor thing.
- Some things were still not explained or just overlooked.Namely, despite the chapter being titled "Earthfall" we get no more than two sentences of events that took place on Earth prior to the Autobots making their first contact with humanity. The section almost immediately jumps right into the events of the Prime cartoon, skipping entirely over the first three years that the TFs were on Earth (a period that goes unmentioned here itself, even). The Predaclones that were cloned during the war, and then sent to ancient Earth, are also not mentioned.
Of all things, the 15-page excerpt from the Covenant of Primus that was included in the Exodus novel is also not in the Covenant of Primus. Go figure.
Final verdict: Eh, it's like a typical Transformers novel. There was an attempt, but the end result is flawed. I don't regret reading it, but it could have been so much more than it was. C-
"When there's gold feathers, punch behind you!!"Shadowman wrote:This is Sabrblade we're talking about. His ability to store trivial information about TV shows is downright superhuman.
Caelus wrote:My wife pointed out something interesting about the prehistoric Predacons. I said that everyone was complaining because transforming for them mostly consisted of them just standing up-right. She essentially said, 'So? That's what our ancestors did.'