Another Tuesday brings another episode of Machinima's Power of the Primes cartoon. Last week we discussed episode one, and it was not great, to say the least. Will episode two do any better? Will it fare any worse? Let's find out, as we dive into
Volcanicus!
(I also suppose I should warn you that the following review does contain spoilers for the POTP Cartoon, just in case. You can read my review of episode one
here.)
We jump in where the first episode left off, in the "Primal Forest", with Victorion, Windblade, and Perceptor fighting the newly formed dinobot combiner, Volcanicus.
Uh, roll credits, I guess?Similar to the last episode, this scene is riddled with bizarre continuity errors that just make no sense, and could have been resolved with simple editing. We're introduced to our first one here: Our heroes are trying to come up with a plan to take down Volcanicus, as they recognize they should be searching for the Requiem Blaster before it falls into Megatronus' hands. Windblade blames Victorion for making the Dinobots so angry they had to combine, saying they had them "Under control" (Suuuure), when Volcanicus tries to step on them. They appear surprised, as if they couldn't see him coming from a mile away. They decide to try to find Megatron, but Victorion says she doesn't need his help.
How does one get snuck up on BY A GIANT ROBOT DINOSAUR COMBINER?!Speaking of old Megs, we catch back up with him, as well. After being thrown miles away (a distance described in the official episode summary) into the swamp by Grimlock in the last episode, he wakes up...ten feet from where Volcanicus and the main cast are?
?!?!?Nearby, he sees a convenient odd glint of light in the forest. He decides to go investigate, leaving the rest of the crew to fend for themselves.
The scene changes and we finally see Devastator, Computron, and Menasor again, currently being questioned by Overlord and..."Rodimus Cron" Menasor swears he doesn't know anything about where Megatron and the others have gone, and Rodimus responds by shooting Computron through the chest, apparently dead now.
Devastator also gets shot through the chest, but survives. Overlord compliments Rodimus on his firepower, and has a flashback to him pulling the "Matrix of Chaos" out of Unicron's decapitated head. Megatronus (through hologram) congratulates Overlord for finding it. Something to notice here is the the Matrix of Chaos uses the Botcon 2000 design for the Matrix of Conquest. An interesting trivia bit pointed out by Seibertronian Sabrblade. Anyway, Devastator and Menasor decide to take them on, but they aren't strong enough, and Devastator gets shot through the chest again, launched through the air, and still survives.
What is physics?Menasor gets his fist crushed by Overlord, and then gets kicked around for his trouble. Again to the show's credit, between DashieXP's vocal performance and an actually expressive face animation for once, this scene is quite painful and desperate. Even though Menasor only gets his hand crushed, it feels violent and dramatic. I just wish some of that drama and weight would carry over to other parts of the series. Character's deaths in particular.
Back in the swamps, Windblade and crew are still dealing with Volcanicus. The grand plan that Victorion came up with is to have Perceptor distract Volcanicus while the other two attack. Perceptor decides to do this by pretending to be a researcher who wants to ask Volcanicus a few questions, even though not only did Vocanicus just see him two seconds ago, but Grimlock identified him by name last episode.
However bad of a plan it is, it works for long enough to let Victorion take a swing at the Dinos, showing that she's nearly the same size, compared to earlier in the episode where she was dwarfed by Volcanicus.
What is scale?Just when it looks like all hope is lost and Vocanicus has them beat, Predaking emerges from the swamp, taking out the Dinobots. He demands to know where the Enigma of Combination is. We cut away just as he decides to blast Victorion. We'll have to wait till episode three to see how that turns out.
Samoa Joe, a new actor to the Trilogy, actually puts on a great performance as Predaking from what we've seen so far of him. He's not really the traditional voice for the character, but it works well in my opinion.
Back at Metroplex City, the two remaining combiners are getting torn to shreds. Overlord Demands answers out of Menasor, and orders Rodimus to continue shooting Devastator until he gets them. Devastator gets an arm and a leg blown off before Menasor talks. He tells Overlord that Megatron headed to the Primal Swamp. Overlord orders Devastator killed anyway, and then kills Menasor by...(checks notecards) gently pushing on the back of his neck.
Devastator dies by a dozen shots straight through the spark from an agent of Unicron, and Menasor dies from an aggressive backrub. Got it.Overlord and Rodimus then start their journey to the swamp, and the episode ends.
Episode two was arguably an improvement over the season opener, though I'm not sure if that's a complement, nor if it's good enough. It certainly doesn't instill faith into the rest of the series. It feels like it's just spinning it's wheels, getting nowhere, even though it's already introduced the majority of the main cast now, and they are all on separate missions. Episode two felt too much like filler with no point or purpose, and there's no tone to speak of. While bits and pieces work, the majority doesn't, especially with an angering amount of random continuity problems plaguing both episode one and two which, and correct me if I'm wrong, weren't as prevalent in either of the two previous shows. We'll see where it goes from here.
Thanks for reading my review of Machinima's Power of the Primes episode 2! If you want to watch it for yourself, you can find it on the Go90 platform and the Transformers Tumblr account. Make sure to share your thoughts on the episode and my review in the comments below, and then tune in next Tuesday when we'll take a look at episode three!
Posted: Wed May 02, 2018 9:05 pm
It's a love hate relationship. I'm a hardcore MST3k fan, so I enjoy sitting and making fun of it. I enjoy writing the jokes/image captions. I don't enjoy the series. It was actually voluntary in the beginning. I just wanted something to review. 
