Seibertron.com Energon Pub Forums

[Kurona]

Also, the hell??? Was it me or did they treat the combiners as a race and not a team of combined cybertronians?

It wasn't just you.

[Bumblevivisector]

Also, the hell??? Was it me or did they treat the combiners as a race and not a team of combined cybertronians?

It wasn't just you.

Sadly, the series' inability to treat any of their components as characters was probably just an inevitable result of the short runtime, and the fact that it was CG. Now, I REALLY do like the look of this series, but multiple gestalts meant full individual models for each bot composing them was prohibitively expensive, and even if it was ol' 2D animation, the economy of characters would've never allowed development for more than one on each team. Just thinking of that gives me more bad Energon flashbacks, since that's probably the reason no CG series before or since had very much combining. No matter how good the writers were, that was an insurmountable problem from the get-go.

Someday, I'd like to see a TF series spend a season structured like the Cybertron cartoon, but with the object of the search on different colony worlds being to find every combiner necessary to form some ancient super gestalt who's the only hope to defeat the big-bad-whatever. Maybe an update of the Multiforce so they could do some dual combining action before they all unite for the grand finale. Has any TF story come closer to this than the Breast Force in the first half of Victory?

And on Windblade just blowing away the Unicron Singularity...has no one else ever heard that "Hairdryer-Man" song? Someone has to find that PBS recording and synch it to that scene. This series is going to be edited into a LOT of youtube parodies, and that desperately needs to be one of them!

[Kurona]

Someday, I'd like to see a TF series spend a season structured like the Cybertron cartoon, but with the object of the search on different colony worlds being to find every combiner necessary to form some ancient super gestalt who's the only hope to defeat the big-bad-whatever. Maybe an update of the Multiforce so they could do some dual combining action before they all unite for the grand finale. Has any TF story come closer to this than the Breast Force in the first half of Victory?

There was Nexus Prime in the Timelines stories.

[Galactic Prime]

This series was complete garbage from start to finish.

The only good thing about it was the animation.

The voice acting was by a bunch of half ass, no talent youtubers and the story was like something a 2 year old wrote.

It was a huge disappointment.

Total **** beginning to end.

Glad it's over, let's hope Hasbro NEVER makes this mistake again.

[Microraptor]

I like that Starscream was defeated by Optimus and Megatron working in tandem. That's a really smart idea. Other than that, this episode had nothing good.

[Sabrblade]

I like that Starscream was defeated by Optimus and Megatron working in tandem. That's a really smart idea.

One that's been done before (in the exact same way, even) in a much better story that I highly recommend to everyone.

(read right to left)





Actually, the more I think about it, this show's climax feels more and more like it ripped off the climax of THAT story! Starscream merges with a superweapon to become an all-powerful form that threatens to destroy everything and everyone, even producing a black hole as a weapon, and needed to be stopped by a team-up between Optimus and Megatron, in which the former in robot mode uses the latter in gun mode to blast Starscream into oblivion.

They couldn't even be bothered to come up with their own unique climax that they had to rip off the one from a much better story!!!

[o.supreme]

I don't know...that is pretty much the exact same thing, but I just don't think the writers of this show are that well researched in TF lore to go looking up a Manga...then again, maybe they were banking on western fans having never read that...and copied it exactly. Its The Lion King all over again.

[King Kuuga]

They couldn't even be bothered to come up with their own unique climax that they had to rip off the one from a much better story!!!

You think the writers of this show, who don't seem exceptionally versed in Transformers mythology, ripped off an obscure manga that most TF fans haven't even heard of?

The voice acting was by a bunch of half ass, no talent youtubers

Whoah there pal. The voice acting was one of the high points of this show. We went over this at the beginning and during the show's run, being primarily from YouTube doesn't mean they aren't skilled or ready for a more professional production like this. Their performances were fine, many people are even praising Jason Marmocha as Megatron and of course our venerable Jon Bailey as Prime. There were a few questionable vocal choices (the totally not-imposing Menasor and Metroplex) but otherwise the acting was one of the better elements.

[Bronzewolf]

The voice acting was by a bunch of half ass, no talent youtubers

Meanwhile Jon Bailey (Optimus prime) Is a professional voice actor who has done countless ads for many gigantic multinational companies.

Just because they're on YouTube or do YouTube as a hobby doesn't mean they aren't professional.

[Kurona]

Yeah, that's pretty disrespectful. Regardless of whether they did a good job or not - and honestly, the voice acting in parts was one of the few things done well - you should still be courteous and respect their profession rather than labelling them as, essentially, random people off the street.

[Burn]

So I'm late to the party as I may have sub-consciously been putting off watching the last episode.

In the beginning I thought "once I've watched all the episodes, I'll go back and watch them all in one sitting so it feels like one big story"

I won't be doing that.

The animation was fine. Some of the voices were great, while others, particularly Starscream, I'll be happy to NEVER hear again.

Story wise, by the end it just seemed to be ANOTHER story to shove Windblade down our collective throats and establish her as this all powerful being and major part of the mythology.

Not to mention the last 30 seconds basically turned the entire series into a prequel/advert for Titans Return, which would explain why we got it NOW and not during the CW run.

Overall ... enjoyed the CGI, I would like to see a series done this way. I'd like to see (hear) some of the voice actors return, but what's really needed is some decent writing, budget and time constraints were clearly a burden with this series. But the potential to build and improve is there.

[Sabrblade]

They couldn't even be bothered to come up with their own unique climax that they had to rip off the one from a much better story!!!

You think the writers of this show, who don't seem exceptionally versed in Transformers mythology, ripped off an obscure manga that most TF fans haven't even heard of?

No. I was upset at the time and just venting.

But you gotta admit, it is a pretty scary coincidence how similar the climax of this show was to climax of that manga, right down to some very strikingly similar details. But, yeah, the manga is pretty obscure and the two do still have their differences (the biggest being that that manga was amazingly good while this show was just the opposite).

[Sabrblade]

Another one of those jokey photocomics, this time for the final episode:

[DedicatedGhostArt]

The voice acting was by a bunch of half ass, no talent youtubers

Whoah there pal. The voice acting was one of the high points of this show. We went over this at the beginning and during the show's run, being primarily from YouTube doesn't mean they aren't skilled or ready for a more professional production like this. Their performances were fine, many people are even praising Jason Marmocha as Megatron and of course our venerable Jon Bailey as Prime. There were a few questionable vocal choices (the totally not-imposing Menasor and Metroplex) but otherwise the acting was one of the better elements.

Yeah it takes a lot of skill to do an Optimus Prime voice. Same goes for Starscream (which I can do), and Megs.

The thing that bummed me out was that this show started out actually pretty well in the first episode. They had a great setup! Menasor and Computron fighting in space, Menasor's "ZERO" line, and that was about it. All of the stuff up to that was amazing. If they had just done everything ELSE different, then it would've been cooler! (Maybe even have- oh, I don't know, maybe made it actual COMBINER WARS? I mean come on. Having only a few combiners and them only showing up for a few seconds doesn't cut it.)

This is how it should've been:

-Instead of Optimus Prime sillily being by himself and finding Windblade by random chance as she is about to shoot the combiney doodad (I can't even remember the name. That's how much I care), they should've had Optimus Prime with his four wave-mates from the toyline; Prowl, Ironhide, Sunstreaker, and Mirage; and they should've been going around as some adventure team or something. Windblade being greeted by all of them would've been awesome.

-There should've been combiners actually fighting each-other for more of the show. There should've also been a whole lot more carnage from the combiners. This thing shouldn't have been called "Combiner Wars" and should've been called "Combiner Wars Could be a Possible Threat so Let's Stop It" instead.

-In the end, instead of Starscream actually being evil, what SHOULD'VE happened is Starscream actually WAS trying to make up for his past sins, and the combiney doodad just got to his head and made him lose his mind or something. Then he should've made some sort of blast that maybe caused Optimus and the four Autobot wave-mates to, I dunno, maybe become combineable and turn into Optimus Maximus??? That may've not made an extreme amount of sense, but it would've at LEAST looked awesome! Also, Starscream should've stayed in that giant combiner form and fought Optimus Maximus instead of blowing up and becoming a screaming head.

I could point out a few other changes, but my post is long enough already.

[Kurona]

Another one of those jokey photocomics, this time for the final episode:

Hey, hey! Don't lump this on Crosscut. He deserves better

[Sabrblade]

Hey, hey! Don't lump this on Crosscut. He deserves better

Not my doing. I just found the comic.

[Stuartmaximus]

I'm sure i read somewhere that someone has merged all of them together so that it plays as just one episode, it's prob on Youtube by now....or something

[YRQRM0]

Just finished this. It felt like something I would've made up and acted out playing with my figures as a kid, so I really did enjoy it from that standpoint. Far from a serious venture though.

Also, I agree a lot of the voice acting was not great. Windblade and Starscream were definitely nice though, and I thought Megatron was kind of cool, not just because of the acting, but the overall demeanor of the character felt a little bit different than what I'm used to in general.

[Tyrannacon]

I didn't think the voice acting was the best for a few of characters, but I doubt I could do any better myself overall than what was done. The Optimus and Megatron performances were very reasonable in my mind, with Megatron being one of the better points and the Optimus performance right behind it. They sounded enough like the characters we know. Plus, getting Cullen and Welker to do it probably would've ate over half of the budget or more and made this a lot more troubled and a lot shorter.

On respecting the creatives, I do have a friend that voice acts in a lot of independent productions, definitely not easy for him to do. He says it can be very unpleasant, but he tries to have fun with it. So that's why I hold a lot of respect for the creative types that can and do things I know my own personal limits on. There's no reason to disrespect anyone here in this case based on their level of "fame". Voicing constructive criticism is infinitely more reasonable overall than senselessly bashing and getting personal about it too. If it's that much of an affront, don't watch it.

I do feel disappointed by this or at least underwhelmed with it due to the run-time of the episodes and a lot of what's being pointed out with the combiners being treated as one entity and not individuals coming together. One thing I do like about the comics is how they get into combining being a conflict of minds all running together. I think that would've been really something very good to include in this series. That's rehashing a lot of my previous posts though.

Unfortunately I dread the Titans Return sequel to this and if it even gets made, but I hope the powers here have kept their ear to the ground and taken the constructive stuff to heart to improve it and make it better. CW web series definitely wasn't as "adult" as advertised though and that's actually been another central issue I've had with it. I mean there were plenty of butt shots for Windblade and a lot of moaning or so coming from her as she fought, but that doesn't actually constitute making something adult enough in my mind. Usually when someone says "adult" I picture there being a lot of interpersonal drama, adult like themes, and the various. This... just didn't have it. I can only hope for improvement if there's another attempt.

[Kurona]

Talking of how badly combining got handled, I was looking at TFWiki's tongue-in-cheek bios for the Energon/Super Link combiner components recently - in that they had no personality - and realised with horror that Energon/Super Link treated Combiners as Combiners more than this series did.

I can't believe they done it.

[Sabrblade]

The more I think about it, the more this show kinda reminds me of how the third season of TF: Prime was in regards to its use of the Predacons. In that show, the Predacons were included at the behest of Hasbro, but only given the barest minimum of effort by the show to answer Hasbro's pleas since the Predacon subplot was swiftly wrapped up and dropped after five episodes (one of which had nothing to do with the Predacon subplot, even) in favor of the show returning to its "revive Cybertron with the Omega Lock" plot that it previously had going in the second season finale. Like with that show seemingly wanting to tell the Omega Lock story while Hasbro instead wanted a Predacon story, it really feels like Machinima wanted to tell an old-school G1-ish story in which Optimus and Megatron team up to fight against a super-powerful Starscream while Hasbro instead wanted them to tell a Combiner-centric story featuring them, Windblade, the Enigma, and other IDW-based elements.

The lack of focus on the Combiners in this show, with it opting instead to focus more on everyone else in the show, really makes the Combiners' screentime feel like it was tacked on after the fact. Victorion and Devastator are barely in this show at all, and the Menasor vs. Computron fight is little more than a plot device that ultimately feels superfluous since Windblade starts out the story as already being angry at the Combiners even before Menasor and Computron come to Caminus. We could literally take out the Menasor and Computron fight and start the story with the angry Windblade already on her way to Cybertron with no real value to the story lost. Because, in the long run, all that really matters in this story is Windblade being angry at something related to the Council that convinces Optimus to recruit Megatron to team up with him to destroy that something that Windblade is angry at, and which Starscream uses to become super powerful. The Combiners themselves are merely an extension of the threat posed by the Enigma, which itself could be replaced by literally any other powerful MacGuffin so long as it enables Starscream to make himself all powerful.

[o.supreme]

Although TF: Prime may have had to shoehorn in Predacons in the 3rd season at the request of Hasbro, at least Predaking was a well developed character, even Skylynx and Darksteel weren't totally forgettable in their sole movie appearance. I have no TF Prime toys, but all the characters are memorable to me. Whereas the Combiners in CW basically got no character development at all...if for lack of time than nothing else. If I did not already have the Victorion toy, I would have no idea who she was, or even care why she was there.

Also...I don't know how they can do Titan Wars when they cant afford to even fully animate a single whole Titan Then again it will probably be the same story (substitute Sentinel Prime for Starscream and Alpha Trion for Windblade) wash, rinse, repeat.

[Sabrblade]

Although TF: Prime may have had to shoehorn in Predacons in the 3rd season at the request of Hasbro, at least Predaking was a well developed character,

One could argue that he was kind of a retread of Dreadwing's schtick as a "noble villain whose sworn loyalty to Megatron which be then breaks after hearing of something underhanded that Megatron did behind the noble villain's back". Only with Predaking, this all occurred across a mere three episodes unlike Dreadwing's season-long arc.

[Kurona]

In any case, TFP still handled their baggage better than CW. One could still find Predaking to have interesting and enjoyable traits - and an actual personality. The same absolutely cannot be said about this series' Combiners. I don't even know if they exhibited any personality traits beyond "I'm a street punk", "I'm a PC", "I laugh evilly" and... "I'm the leader I guess".

[Sabrblade]

Oh yes, don't get me wrong, this show certainly handled its use of Combiners worse than Prime handled its use of Predacons. But the similarities are still there as I remember tons of people hating on Prime for its only having one Predacon in the third season and for dropping any and all prospects for its having more by terminating Shockwave's Pred lab just so it could go back to the Omega Lock story. People wanted more Preds, lots more Preds, than the single one we got, and were absolutely mad about the show's seemingly hyping up the coming of more Preds and then tossing all of that in the can for the rest of the season (Predacons Rising was made after the fact and was more of a Unicron story than anything). It's the same feeling I got from this show when first Devastator and then Victorion showed up only for both of them to quickly get absorbed by Starscream.