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[william-james88]

There is currently a rumour within the community based on insider information, detailing that a new animated Transformers show is currently in development. Very little info has been given but the rumour would entail that Earthspark would end after season 2. We do not know if this was always intentional or not, since it could be that the new show is more in line with the TF One film, with Earthspark existing as a show to providing content for the brand before a new era. The initial rumour also gave ratings as a possible reason, which of course can always be the case. As of now, the show ending after season two, or being replaced/cancelled is still a rumour. Our knowledge that a new show is being worked on is coming from someone who is currently working on said show.

We will keep you up to date on further developments. For now, Earthspark still has a whole season coming up for everyone to enjoy, starting June 7th.

[Bounti76]

If this turns out to be true, I wouldn't be surprised. While the episodes I've caught have been pretty decent, the toyline sells like.... well, nothing. It's clogged shelves since it was released.

As to the other point, while the character of Nightshade is fine, rather intolerant people have made a crisis out of a less than 30 second scene where pronouns are explained (the word gender is never mentioned). On a vaguely related note, look at people losing their brain modules over the also non-binary Morph in the X-Men 97 series. Their gender was only ever mentioned in the credits, and as far as I know, their pronouns have only been used once, by Rogue, in the next-to-last episode. The hate that trans and non-binary people face is unreal.

[william-james88]

If this turns out to be true, I wouldn't be surprised. While the episodes I've caught have been pretty decent, the toyline sells like.... well, nothing. It's clogged shelves since it was released.

As to the other point, while the character of Nightshade is fine, rather intolerant people have made a crisis out of a less than 30 second scene where pronouns are explained (the word gender is never mentioned). On a vaguely related note, look at people losing their brain modules over the also non-binary Morph in the X-Men 97 series. Their gender was only ever mentioned in the credits, and as far as I know, their pronouns have only been used once, by Rogue, in the next-to-last episode. The hate that trans and non-binary people face is unreal.

At least with Morph, he's from a show that is targeting all ages, as opposed to mainly younger viewers. That's what the whole controversy was about. But yeah, that deal with Morph shows you don't need much.

As for the toyline clogging up the shelves, it's not wrong, but it's not new either. Cyberverse and RID 2015 had so many older fans enraged that it's all you could find clogging up the shelves but those shows still lasted a good while.

[DeathReviews]

Heck, even GOOD Transformers shows, like Transformers Animated, have been cancelled prematurely. It's disingenuous to blame a show's failure on a convenient boogerman like intolerance. That's just deflecting responsibility to an intangible, ideological scapegoat. Lay the ultimate responsibility where it belongs - on the show itself.

If a show is any good, people will watch - regardless of 'intolerance' or 'conservative news outlets'. As for Earthspark itself, when it was first teased I said: "Transformers is supposed to be a story about good vs. evil, depicted as a civil war between two factions of giant, alien robots. If Earthspark tries to make it about something else, if their writing gets subsumed in some weird crusade to 'redefine what it means to be a family', then the show will fail."

And it didn't help that Nickelodeon kept bouncing it around so unpredictably. You can't keep a show almost a dead secret, then ambush viewers with episodes without telling them when it's on, then act surprised when ratings are low.

[First-Aid]

To quote Bender: "Hey sexy mama...wanna kill all the humans?"

Yeah, let's just lose all the humans in the next series. I wonder if this is going to be related to Transformers One?

Look, kids aren't dumb. They don't need humans to connect to characters. If the characters are written well, they will connect and identify with them. Take a lesson from the (first) death of Optimus Prime in the 86 movie. The outflow of sorrow and tears from kids was telling...and they didn't need a human to identify with him! They just created an identifiable, kind, wise father figure that kids could look up to. The rest happened naturally. LET THE BOTS RULE.

End of tangental rant.

[Glyph]

At least with Morph, he's from a show that is targeting all ages, as opposed to mainly younger viewers. That's what the whole controversy was about.

IME, that's only ever the pretext, never the actual complaint - which is basically always that the character exists at all. The age factor doesn't even make sense as a complaint unless you're conflating identity with sexuality, which is of course the standard rhetorical move precisely because it brings "but think of the children!" into play.


Aaanyway. I haven't really kept up with Earthspark despite meaning to (my 8yo godson loves it, though) - was there ever a suggestion of its intended run length? 2-3 seasons seems pretty normal, and I would expect to get something to tie in to TF:One once that's out (and that next series would have to already be in development at this point, naturally).

[Deadput]

Just because the franchise doesn't "require" humans doesn't mean that humans are a concept bringing down the franchise. About Robots that turn into vehicles that even on Cybertron are typically based on IRL vehicles.

You just need good writers who can make both humans and Transformers work.

There were a couple of trilogies a few years back that had no humans at all and were still absolute travesties in the writing department, although Cyberverse was actually quite decent and had no humans despite Earth being a location as well.

Point is that humans don't need to stay or go, writers just need to use them well if they are in the show. It's not impossible and it has been done before.

[Glyph]

Just because the franchise doesn't "require" humans doesn't mean that humans are a concept bringing down the franchise. ... You just need good writers who can make both humans and Transformers work.

Yeah, this. Paging Bob Budiansky: "What's the point of bringing your alien robots to Earth and then not having them interact with humans?"

[o.supreme]

If anything, I think it has more to do with the sale of eOne. When Hasbro announced its sale, I thought there may be no S2 of Earthspark. But in truth, probably 2 seasons were agreed upon from the beginning, so eOne is just finishing out a contractual obligation. This happens often in animation, whether a series is popular or not, if whomever is financing the project doesn't wish to order any more episodes, then that's it.

Unfortunately I've pretty much given up on TF Animation, which has been the core of my connection to the franchise for 40 years. Through all the ups and downs, I had faith that in time, something good would come along eventually. Prime was the last series I truly enjoyed, and the film that ended that series came out 11 years ago.

I understanding wanting to aim at younger audiences to try to cultivate new fans. But the stuff that has been made for old folks like me (The Machinima Prime Wars Series and Netflix WFC) are just really "off" in many ways. I actually do (in some misguided way) enjoy some parts of the Netflix series, but others just infuriate me.

Basically my feelings are this: Just ONCE I wish Hasbro would try to recreate something that would honestly look and feel like the original Sunbow animated series. Get Toei involved as well. While X-Men 97 isn't the same as the 90's show, it certainly is a worthy effort.

I know many of the Actors are sadly no longer with us. But when I hear excuses like "It would be too expensive", or "The technology doesn't exist any more". I like to paraphrase Obadiah Stane from the first Iron Man film:

Hasbro: we can't make new episodes of the original series. It's too expensive and the technology doesn't exist anymore

Obadiah Stane (the fans) : Fanatic Films did it With Scraps in a Cave!

Hasbro: with all do respect, we aren't Fanatic Films.



Now these may make zero sense continuity wise. But honestly, watching them brings me more satisfaction than any actual TF series has since Prime ended in 2013.

[Sabrblade]

To quote Bender: "Hey sexy mama...wanna kill all the humans?"

Yeah, let's just lose all the humans in the next series. I wonder if this is going to be related to Transformers One?

Look, kids aren't dumb. They don't need humans to connect to characters. If the characters are written well, they will connect and identify with them. Take a lesson from the (first) death of Optimus Prime in the 86 movie. The outflow of sorrow and tears from kids was telling...and they didn't need a human to identify with him! They just created an identifiable, kind, wise father figure that kids could look up to. The rest happened naturally. LET THE BOTS RULE.

End of tangental rant.

If you don't want humans, go watch Cyberverse.

[First-Aid]

To quote Bender: "Hey sexy mama...wanna kill all the humans?"

Yeah, let's just lose all the humans in the next series. I wonder if this is going to be related to Transformers One?

Look, kids aren't dumb. They don't need humans to connect to characters. If the characters are written well, they will connect and identify with them. Take a lesson from the (first) death of Optimus Prime in the 86 movie. The outflow of sorrow and tears from kids was telling...and they didn't need a human to identify with him! They just created an identifiable, kind, wise father figure that kids could look up to. The rest happened naturally. LET THE BOTS RULE.

End of tangental rant.

If you don't want humans, go watch Cyberverse.

Don't have that streaming service and not paying for it. If it comes out on DVD, I'll probably check it out.

[o.supreme]

If you don't want humans, go watch Cyberverse.

Or even better: Beast Wars. BWII was pretty great as well, although I know I'm in the minority on that .

[Glyph]

If anything, I think it has more to do with the sale of eOne. When Hasbro announced its sale, I thought there may be no S2 of Earthspark. But in truth, probably 2 seasons were agreed upon from the beginning, so eOne is just finishing out a contractual obligation. This happens often in animation, whether a series is popular or not, if whomever is financing the project doesn't wish to order any more episodes, then that's it.

Forgot about this (busy day!) but it sounds very plausible. Even with S2 being produced by Hasbro Entertainment and the Family & Brands dept being folded into Hasbro, I could certainly see cancellation at the changeover point (see also: Clone Wars getting cancelled when Disney bought LFL).

[Sabrblade]

To quote Bender: "Hey sexy mama...wanna kill all the humans?"

Yeah, let's just lose all the humans in the next series. I wonder if this is going to be related to Transformers One?

Look, kids aren't dumb. They don't need humans to connect to characters. If the characters are written well, they will connect and identify with them. Take a lesson from the (first) death of Optimus Prime in the 86 movie. The outflow of sorrow and tears from kids was telling...and they didn't need a human to identify with him! They just created an identifiable, kind, wise father figure that kids could look up to. The rest happened naturally. LET THE BOTS RULE.

End of tangental rant.

If you don't want humans, go watch Cyberverse.

Don't have that streaming service and not paying for it. If it comes out on DVD, I'll probably check it out.

You don't have YouTube? That's where it was primarily aired.

YouTube, and the 6am deadslot on Cartoon Network.

[First-Aid]

To quote Bender: "Hey sexy mama...wanna kill all the humans?"

Yeah, let's just lose all the humans in the next series. I wonder if this is going to be related to Transformers One?

Look, kids aren't dumb. They don't need humans to connect to characters. If the characters are written well, they will connect and identify with them. Take a lesson from the (first) death of Optimus Prime in the 86 movie. The outflow of sorrow and tears from kids was telling...and they didn't need a human to identify with him! They just created an identifiable, kind, wise father figure that kids could look up to. The rest happened naturally. LET THE BOTS RULE.

End of tangental rant.

If you don't want humans, go watch Cyberverse.

Don't have that streaming service and not paying for it. If it comes out on DVD, I'll probably check it out.

You don't have YouTube? That's where it was primarily aired.

YouTube, and the 6am deadslot on Cartoon Network.

I thought it was on Netflix?

I find it interesting and hypocritical here. In the live movie threads, it's all about "LOSE THE HUMANS! WE DON"T NEED THE HUMANS! MOAR TRANSFORMERS!" THen in THIS thread, it's the opposite.

[Sabrblade]

To quote Bender: "Hey sexy mama...wanna kill all the humans?"

Yeah, let's just lose all the humans in the next series. I wonder if this is going to be related to Transformers One?

Look, kids aren't dumb. They don't need humans to connect to characters. If the characters are written well, they will connect and identify with them. Take a lesson from the (first) death of Optimus Prime in the 86 movie. The outflow of sorrow and tears from kids was telling...and they didn't need a human to identify with him! They just created an identifiable, kind, wise father figure that kids could look up to. The rest happened naturally. LET THE BOTS RULE.

End of tangental rant.

If you don't want humans, go watch Cyberverse.

Don't have that streaming service and not paying for it. If it comes out on DVD, I'll probably check it out.

You don't have YouTube? That's where it was primarily aired.

YouTube, and the 6am deadslot on Cartoon Network.

I thought it was on Netflix?

Only after if finished airing each season, just like every other TF cartoon that gets put on Netflix. The only ones that exclusively went to Netflix first were War For Cybertron Trilogy and BotBots.

I find it interesting and hypocritical here. In the live movie threads, it's all about "LOSE THE HUMANS! WE DON"T NEED THE HUMANS! MOAR TRANSFORMERS!" THen in THIS thread, it's the opposite.

Because the humans in the movies are always written to be the real stars of the films (which we don't want) while the cartoons typically know how to keep the humans confined to supporting roles instead (which is fine).

[chuckdawg1999]

I think Cyberverse is also on Tubi and Pluto, both free streaming services.

I just learned this recently with all the drama around Nickelodeon, if a show is going to go 3 or more seasons and thus hit a certain episode count, for the third season they'll change the name to avoid having to pay royalties to the actors and writers. That's why Prime became Beast Hunters and Cyberverse had all those sub-names. Perhaps Earthspark is going to become Earthspark: rise of the combiners or something like that. Another thought, they have a LOT of well-known talent on the show now, and coming in season two, maybe it was just too much money to make.

[Sabrblade]

I just learned this recently with all the drama around Nickelodeon, if a show is going to go 3 or more seasons and thus hit a certain episode count, for the third season they'll change the name to avoid having to pay royalties to the actors and writers. That's why Prime became Beast Hunters and Cyberverse had all those sub-names.

But, neither Prime nor Cyberverse ever aired on Nickelodeon.

[Quantum Surge]

I'm not surprised by this series ending too soon if true but I'm not dancing on its grave either. I keep forgetting this series was a thing (especially since Skybound and ROTB got my interest more)

[D-Maximal_Primal]

Kinda bummed if this is true, but not surprised, given how little it has been advertised and how scattered the releases have been

[Glyph]

I just learned this recently with all the drama around Nickelodeon, if a show is going to go 3 or more seasons...

But, neither Prime nor Cyberverse ever aired on Nickelodeon.

Not just Nickelodeon - this got some discussion around the WGA/SAG-AFTRA strikes, with Netflix being particularly called out at the time IIRC. Seems it's a known tactic by the streamers to get around production crew pay scaling in the standard contracts. (Not saying it's necessarily at issue here.)

[Sabrblade]

Beast Hunters happened because the team at Hasbro changed. They originally wanted the Prime creators to end the show at season 2 and have Beast Hunters be a new show to replace Prime altogether. They wanted dragons and the new Optimus toy they designed, while the Prime team wanted to continue their show and see it to its proper conclusion. The third season being what it was was a compromise to make both sides happy.

[Bumblebee1188]

I am noticing in some of the comments a rather elitist and condescending light cast on people who are unhappy with nightshade.

It is fairly hypocritical to call someone a bigot for disagreeing with you. We are talking about a fictional character. I don't think it's fair to say people have a hateful opinion about an imaginary cartoon. Parents worldwide have personal values, and want those values reflected in the media their children consume. Pushing your own personal opinions into a children's show, and then becoming rude and irate when parents dont agree with your own personal opinions makes you the bigot. People have a right to watch earthspark, and people have a right to dislike it. That's just, like, your opinion man.

I personally think it quite silly that genderless robotic organisms who reproduce by assembling new robots would have any concept of gender, in-between, or lack thereof. It was only in the show for 30 seconds and has no bearing on the story. They don't explore or explain the phenomenon in any meaningful way which improves either the story or the characters. It's literally just a random writer's mary-sue self-insert. It's not particularly offensive in my opinion, I just see it as poor writing as a transformers fan, and sympathize with parents who don't want their children exposed to radical political agendas.

I also think it's very silly to suggest transformers earthspark is popular with children. Yes, it may be more popular with children than it is with adult fans of transformers. But to say it /is/ popular with children would be a farce. These toys sit on shelves for months and never sell. I see them every time I go hunting for short-packaged takara-tomy figures in legacy or studio series. They're alright as a toy, but their bizarre art style feels very corporate and distasteful. I like a robot's transformation and then I see the headsculpt and it just doesn't jive with me. So I put it back on the shelf and go look at Lego and Pokemon.

I think one of this series biggest shortcomings is that it tries to place itself in the G1 continuity, but has no real connection to G1. It feels haphazardly tacked on, as if the writers weren't confident to go out on a limb with their own story and universe. Tacking bad writing onto an existing series as a sequel does not improve bad writing. It just drags down the source material you are referencing.

But this is a general problem in Hollywood, so it's unfair to blame it on transformers earthspark. Paramount have a long history of ruining existing franchises with poorly written sequels. Look at Star Trek, the halo show, and God forbid AOE or TLK.

The problem is endless sequels and uncreative writing which is too afraid to experiment with weird ideas, and more concerned about self-inserting current year politics. I don't care what end of the political spectrum a writer agrees with, I don't want to be lectured by them.

Transformers prime is an excellent example of a studio wading into deeper waters and exploring new territory with novel ideas and concepts. I hope whatever animation we get next from transformers delves into those kinds of concepts. Not darkness, or edgyness. Not a specific art style. Not even humans vs no humans. Give me something self-consistent which takes itself seriously while understanding it's still a goofy cartoon about cars who stand up and fight each other on different planets.

What interests me is new ideas and exploring old ideas by flipping them on their head and following the logical consequences. I like character growth, and individual personalities with goals and aspirations. What changes a character's mind enough to compel them to switch factions, or betray a friend? Transformers has the unique position of being a well known science fiction franchise which appeals to both children and adults, while retaining the potential to be categorized as high fiction.

It's never capitalized on that potential, which constantly disappoints me, but that potential is there. And I think it's high time we got a transformers series where the writers focus on the robots, their relationship to each other, their relationship with humanity, and how their society and species "transform" over eons. These characters are essentially immortal undying demigods with multiple methods of resurrection and character development. I think that avenue is what paramount should pursue. High quality character driven fiction with a consistent and surprising plot followed to it's logical end while maintaining a surprisingly mature but still family friendly tone.

[Solrac333]

Maybe it's canceled because it was a terrible show. I haven't been excited for any animated shows since Prime. The live action films are fine but I don't get excited for those either. I'm happy if I'm entertained by them. The only thing that keeps me in the franchise is the collecting but even that has slowed because of the insane prices.

[Sabrblade]

Maybe it's canceled because it was a terrible show.