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This is it. The beginning of the end. The final chapter in Machinima's Prime Wars trilogy, bringing with it my last reviews for the series. I've reviewed Combiner Wars, Titans Return, and now it's time to review the finale season. We still have lots of episodes to get through, though, before we get to the true ending, so let's buckle up for one last ride, courtesy of Power of the Primes.
The episode gives us a brand new title sequence, featuring a logo cut by a laser from the floating head of Unicron, (Spoilers, maybe?) who looks like he was rendered using the animation software from the G2 commercials. It leads us to the title of the episode...
-Insert obligatory, completely original Shrek joke here-
Megatronus, voiced by Mark Hamill, starts us off by explaining to some mysterious force, whoistotallynotUnicronwhydoyouask, that he has to find a relic called the Requiem Blaster to complete the ancient...triumphurent? Right off the bat the usual problems pop up, blocky animation, expressionless faces, terrible lip sync, the usual, but they all seem to be worse this time around. It definitely seems like the series was rushed to try to premiere at the same time the coinciding toys were on store shelves, something neither of the two previous shows were able to do. Most of the movements characters make are sudden, with just a few frames dedicated to each. We'll dive into that more a bit later in the episode.
Anyway, Megatronus has a brief flashback to the era of the original 13 Primes, back when he had used the requiem blaster for good to defeat evil, not the other way around. It also introduces a frankly strange love interest in the form of Solus Prime. Solus wants the blaster destroyed, and Megatronus is offended that she doesn't trust him to keep it safe. Solus' performance is stale and rigid, especially given that she's trying to be portrayed as a warm, charming character. But, similarly, voice direction has not been one of the past show's highlights.
Because even Megatronus has to have a villain backstory. For some reason.
This whole scene gets a bit exposition heavy, and doesn't flow very well as a normal conversation. It's quite painfully obvious that this scene is purely to inform the viewer of Megatronus' plan and backstory, even though there are more organic ways of achieving that. Megatronus doesn't find the blaster, and dissapears, off to search another area.
We then catch up with the main cast, consisting of Perceptor, Windblade, Victorion, and Megatron, who find themselves being watched in the middle of a cybernetic swamp. The same story with Megatronus and Solus is detailed again, making the previous scene unneeded. While it's hard to get across in text form, there's a scene here that shows all of these characters together, talking one at a time. The only character that ever moves, blinks, or changes their facial expressions is the one that's talking. The rest are just still character models until it's their turn to talk. This looks AWFUL, and has to be one of the worst looking shots I've noticed in any of these shows. The way the characters are animated makes them look lifeless enough, let alone just making them stand frozen when they aren't talking.
The group is then ambushed by the Dinobots, who appear from the plant growth in the swamp.
*Live Studio Audience Applauds*
Something extremely important to note here is that, despite the Dinobots combining later in the episode, they all have their own personalities and voices, something other combiner members in this show notably do not have. It's been all but established that the limbs of combiners are little more than drones, and it's just one consciousness shared between the members. This totally retcons that entire thing, showing that (at least with Volcanicus) each member has a consciousness, identity, name, voice, and (in the case of Grimlock and Slug at minimum) a robot mode and the ability to transform.
So wait, does that mean Dust Up just got straight up sliced in half? Is she dead? How can Victorion still control her right arm? This presents so many questions.
To the episode's credit, it is really nice to hear Gregg Berger as Grimlock again. He delivers a great performance, and it's a great callback to the original show.
The Dinobots start attacking the gang, because they don't trust Megatron. Grimlock takes out Megatron with the slowest, easiest-to-see-coming tail swipe ever. He then grabs Perceptor, trying to drown him, even though he shouldn't need air to breathe. There are several instances here where a few more frames would have made things look considerably smoother, such as when Perceptor gets knocked over. On the first couple of watches I genuinely though he just clipped through Grimlock's leg.
Grimlock moves more like a sock puppet here then I would like to admit.
Meanwhile, the other members of the expedition are having their own problems with the dinos. For instance, Victorion is having to deal with both Sludge and Snarl, who both seem to be nearly the same size as her even though we've seen Volcanicus and Victorion being the same size in trailers.
I swear to Primus they're saying "TOM" "HANKS!" "TOM" "HANKS!"
And then we're treated to the best/worst part of the entire episode. Windblade is in the middle of a battle with Slug, and tosses him across the clearing. In the next shot, however, he stands up, transformed, about ten feet away on her left. You can see Windblade on the ground after tossing Slug in the lower left hand corner of the first image, and then where Slug pops back up in literally the NEXT SHOT in image 2. Who in the production office decided that was okay?
...10 outta 10
The Dinobots regroup, and reveal to the cast that they can form Volcanicus, the bombshell on which the episode ends.
That was quite the episode. I wish I could say that they've fixed everything, or that it's even an improvement over the last series, but I honestly can't. The mouth movements are worse, the animation feels rushed, the writing is still terrible, the voice direction and some of the acting isn't good, and there's glaring continuity errors that are just glossed over. There isn't enough story to fully critique yet, so I'll reserve my judgement for the full series until more episodes are released, but I don't harbor a lot of hope.
Thanks for tuning in with me to take a look at Power of the Primes. If you want to watch the episode for yourself and tell me if I was right or wrong, you can find it on Go90 or the Transformers Tumblr page. Join me next week as we take a look at episode 2!
While Transformers Power of the Primes Rodimus Unicronus was the first wave 2 toy found at US retail (once again, the US being the first country for a sighting), no one made a video review. Until now that is, since Peaugh has now uploaded a review to Youtube. This toy has been showing up at Walmarts across the US.
For those unaware, Rodimus Unicronus may look like a Shattered Glass Rodimus, but is in fact a corrupt version of Rodimus, imbued with Unicron's influence through a dark Matrix of sorts - the Matrix of Chaos!
The video below goes takes us through this mustachioed evolved Leader class version, plus Nemesis Hot Rod, the smaller Deluxe robot/car, plus a comparison with the wave 1 Leader class Rodimus Prime, so check it out!
Another Tuesday brings another episode of Machinima's Titans Return animated series. We're finally up to the final episode this week, episode ten, and boy are we in for a big one. That's not necessarily saying it's good or bad, just that it's packed to the brim with new, interesting, and slightly confusing moments. So without further ado, let's take a look at the final episode of Titans Return!
We rejoin the action with Trypticon having just eaten Victorion, the Enigma of Combination, Perceptor, and the Matrix of Leadership. This is obviously too much power for even the giant Titan, so he automatically rejects them all, coughing up the two Autobots and the two relics. Starscream's ghost is also released from Trypticon's body, and he falls, having basically been turned into an empty shell. The former council member says his final words to the Megatron and the rest of the cast, and then disappears into the ether. Sort of an anti-climatic end to the main plot thread of the series, but it at least makes some sort of sense. For the first time in a few episodes, Overlord is shown again, now overlooking (badumtiss) the aftermath of the battle.
"Well ain't that downright...finger lickin' good."
Victorion tries to retake the Enigma, but it catches her on fire, burning her right forearm, an entire half of Dust Up (Who may or may not exist as a separate personality in this continuity, given this series' track record with Combiners), completely off.
She recoils from the attack as the fire spreads, creating a ring around both the Enigma and the Matrix. The fire climbs higher and creates the shape of a...fairly non-threatening smiley face?
"Children of my third cousin twice removed's wife's sister's bank teller!"
The Emoji from hell reveals himself to be some sort of God to the Transformers, and Optimus wants to defend Cybertron from his obvious evil intentions, but Megatron convinces Prime to let him talk to the mystical being first. As Megatron approaches, the being reveals himself to be none other than Megatronus. Megatron speaks to him, reminding the God that he has, for eternities, fought under his name with respect and honor, and united the Decepticons Megatronus created. Megatronus tells him to move on to his point, so Megatron continues.
I have a few issues with Megatron's speech here.
The first is that Megatron curses Megatronus, saying "Goddamn you!". It caught me so off guard that it totally pulled me out of the episode. I haven't really shared my thoughts on the PG-13 nature of this series' dialogue yet, so I'll throw those two cents in now. It's not the principle of swearing that bothers me specifically, I think it's fine to use for effect, but in this series it feels like they're including it just because they can. There's no drama to it, no anguish, it's just there. Not only that, but in this specific case it makes no sense, as he's the God doing the damning. Perhaps it would have been more of an effect had he said "Primus Damn you!" or something to that effect, referencing a power higher than Megatronus. I digress.
My second issue with this scene is Megatron himself. Megatron's voice actor is one of the best parts of both this series and its predecessor, Combiner Wars. The sarcastic and flippant take on the classic character is seriously one of the best Megatrons we've seen since G1, but in this specific scene, it doesn't completely work. He's lamenting to his God and Idol about all of these things he's done to try and honor Megatronus, but he still maintains his indifferent exterior. It actually would have been an interesting scene to have him perhaps become slightly vulnerable at the feet of his idol when he's so buffed against vulnerability toward everyone else. It would have deepened his character, and would have really shown that he felt betrayed about doing all these things to gain approval of Megatronus just to receive nothing in response.
It's awesome to see our podcast staff in official media...
Anyway, Optimus and Fort Max use this opportunity to try to attack Megatronus, and it ends, uh, very poorly.
Fort Max actually uses the Master Sword, which is pretty awesome to see in an American series, but Megatronus easily blocks his attacks. He then gets rushed by Prime, though Optimus is similarly no match for the god, and gets blasted through the chest by a lazer. Yep, we get to deal with this again.
Oh, guys, no. Why? Didn't Transformers: The Movie teach you anything about what happens when you kill Optimus Prime?
As the life drains from Optimus's eyes, Megatronus warns of an apocalyptic event that will bring an end to the Transformers. With that cryptic warning, he disappears. Megatron realizes he knows where to find Megatronus, and asks the rest of the team to follow him there, promising the new adventure for the cast in the next series.
Overlord is still on a nearby hill watching what's transpiring before him, and for one final twist to this huge episode, it's revealed to us that he has turned Hot Rod into Rodimus Unicronus. With that, the episode, and the series, ends.
While on the whole this was a very enjoyable episode, there were bits and pieces that irked me. Line deliveries, pacing issues, the norm for this series. It answered a few questions and ended a few plot threads, but started quite a few more, but does lead in to a cliffhanger to transition into Power of The Primes. The amount of new characters and plot twists has definitely peaked my interest, and was an exciting episode, but I feel that spreading some of them out over the past couple of episodes would have been better. Some of the more recent installments have felt a bit too dull and filler-like, but it did make for quite a nail-biting episode today, like I said. And if there's one thing you can say for these Machinima shows, they're always unpredictable.
Looking at the series as a whole, it was not bad by any stretch. I've maintained since the beginning that it is leagues ahead of Combiner Wars, and it really is. In voice talent, animation, pacing, even the mouth movements on the characters, everything is a huge improvement. I can say unequivocally this production team learned a lot from their past mistakes and tried to remedy some of them. There lies the problem, though: They didn't fix enough of them. The pacing still feels off, some of the conversations need, desperately, to feel more natural and flowing. Character movements need to be more natural, and need to express more emotion when someone's talking. It's all very close to being good, and they have made vast improvements and learned a lot, I just think they need to learn a bit more.
Thanks for reading this review, and, as always, please share your thoughts down in the Energon Pub forums. Sorry today's review was a tad longer than what I normally do, there was a lot to unpack. Tell me if you agree with the points I made, or if I'm way off base. See you later this year, with the release of Power of the Primes!
Twas the Night Before Unicron A Seibertron.com Spoilerish review of IDW's Optimus Prime #14
OK, so to start things off with, this was a difficult story for me to get my head around. When I first read this issue, I had to take a step back, wonder what I just read, take a few more moments, and reread. And even then, I still wasn't sure of what I read.
Take a few moments to read some other staff inputs, and some more sense it made.
Not a creature was stirring, not even a Goldbug
Now, that is not to say that this is an issue that is very confusing. It's not an issue where we are jumping around time, not one where things are jumbled, not one where the writing is bad. The story itself is a really good read and another great installment for the Optimus Prime run. It's just an issue where, much like last issue, there is a lot of stuff going on. It is dense in its content. And most of that is saved for the final few pages, where a reveal throws all kinds of continuity dense implications to us.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St Prowl would soon be there
Now that we got that out of the way, here are some actual thoughts. The opening pages with Prowl and crew, it felt cool and yet unique. Here we have a crew of misfits essentially, those who have not been accounted for over the past few years, mostly. Wheelie and Garnak once again make a triumphant return, the Throttlebots, and Stardrive, not to mention all of Prowl's tech. The one oddball thing about this whole section: what on Earth is Prowl gathering everything for? And why this crew of characters? It does make me smile some to see Prowl is still up to his old ways, even if it does feel a bit weird following the ending of Titans Return.
Cut back to Cybertron: the whole section feels just a bit wonky, but it still works out for me. This is the first part that gave me some pause. The way the characters fight each other feels a bit weird, but bringing together characters developed in different stories for this section will do that to you. I did enjoy the Trypticon "reveal" part though, and jokes about Dinobot child resemblance made me smirk several times. The writing with the Dino-crew is a great story in and of itself to follow.
The protoforms were nestled all snug in Trypticon, with visions of Dino jokes in their heads
Arcee had some good moments in there, as did Prime. With Till All Are One coming out with some big new story developments, it was fun to see Starscream interact with both Bumblebee and Bludgeon. I'm interested to see where the Dinobots go from here too, along with Sandstorm.
As for the final 2 pages, that is a reveal I didn't see coming, but one where things make all kinds of sense, and they make me worry about what is about to happen next. Taking 2 of the biggest... pricks/pains-in-the-back characters and now showing them to be in cahoots with each other is interesting and a take that is setting up even more tension prior to the Unicron story to come. Barber is probably the only one who could handle this whole set up, and as far as I am concerned, he is nailing it, and he is setting us up for some truly fun stuff to come.
When out in Iacon there arose such a clatter
The story was helped a lot by Livio Ramondelli and his art, and as I and others have said, his art has improved greatly. I really enjoyed the scenes he was drawing, and there are distinct close ups that he nails perfectly, such as Arcee and Prowl. Everything Trypticon is awesome in this story too. I give props to Livio for continued improvement, his art has become something that is quire enjoyable to follow.
With a little old driver, so tiny and quick, I knew it must be Centuri-nick
And Tom B. Long continues to do great work with the lettering. I am especially appreciative of the inverted speech bubble colors. He helps add that mysticism that Bludgeon is helping to set up.
As a close friend of mine likes to say: "long story short": this is a great book, and one that nicely compliments issue 13 as a 2 part continuity-heavy saga leading up to the Primes and Unicron. Things are being done, they are being done right, and they are being done enjoyably, with no major complaints on story, art, or otherwise.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight: Great comics to all, and to all a new Sideswipe!
The story has moved, old continuity points are being sewed up, and we are getting set for a big year next year with comics. And I am glad this crew continues to be a flagship for the comic run.
Bronzewolf in review 4 wrote:That's right! Somehow we're already half way through the second Machinima Transformers series,
Hate to burst your bubble there Bronzewolf, but there are 10 episodes to this series, your pain is going to have to endure a little longer, were not quite half way there yet.
...what?
westjames/notirish. wrote:There are 11 episodes... 4 is not the halfway point, 5 is.
NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
...
...
...
Machinima Transformers Titans Return Episode 5. Let's get it over with.
We open again on the Metroplex/Trypticon fight, as the giant robot Kaiju charges the City Titan. Windblade checks in on the fighting as Hot Rod arrives and we get something new in the series. Something completely revolutionary... Diagonal split frames!
The dialogue in this scene is especially badly paced. It doesn't flow like a normal conversation, and it's so apparent you can't ignore it. Hot Rod and Windblade join the battle, and Hot Rod actually gets a couple cool shots here that flow really nicely thanks to some pretty good animation! Like this! This was awesome! I know, I didn't expect it from this series either.
Hot Rod realizes the spirit of Starscream is within Trypticon as he and Windblade try to assist Metroplex. The city robot is taken down eventually by Trypticon, however, and Trypticon finishes him off with the most ridiculous scene in the series. Hey, guys? Yeah, Godzilla Vs. Gigan called. They want their campiness back.
It appears that Metroplex is defeated as Emissary ejects himself from the Titan's body. As he runs from the battle, Trypticon spots him and eats him, absorbing his Laserblast power. Hot Rod realizes that he must free Emissary as the laser beams fired by the Combiners in the previous episode finally arrive at their target and start falling from the sky. It doesn't phase Trypticon, as he continues to terrorize the city. Yep, singlehandedly destroying the city more than Trypicon and Metroplex combined. Good job, guys.
We cut away from the action for a moment to a tank entering the Mistress of Flame's prayer chamber. It's revealed to be Megatron, who discovers the Mistress' body on the floor. She uses the last of the power in her spark to ask him if the combiners were successful in reactivating Fortress Maximus. He says he doesn't know anything about that. She tells him Overlord has returned, and dies. Finally, the sarcasm of Megatron has come to save us all.
Back in the battle, Hot Rod makes it inside of Trypticon to save Emissary, and launches back out through Trypticon's eye. He throws Emissary to Windblade as Trypticon bats him across the city. Windblade rushes to his aid and promises she'll send Ratchet to help him. Ratchet?? Why can't he be in the show? But...but..
She transforms and takes Emissary away, mentioning that they haven't been properly introduced. Emissary already knows who she is, however, as she's well known amongst the Titan Masters. Windblade laughs and says that she's "Quite the fan favorite".
Yeah. HAHAHA HASBRO YOU'RE VERY FUNNY WE GET IT
Overlord arrives on the scene, and starts threatening the injured Hot Rod. As he talks, he makes the most bizarre movements in both Combiner Wars or Titans Return. He flails around like something out of Food Fight. I shouldn't be reminded of Food Fight when watching your TV show/Movie. Just as kind of a general rule. Can someone put Disco music over this? Please?
Eventually Hot Rod tries to shoot Overlord, but yet again it does nothing. Overlord then says he has something for Hot Rod, bestowing upon him what appears to be an evil matrix, turning him into what is assumed to be Rodimus Unicronus, although we never see that. It's certainly a twist that I didn't see coming, and is actually pretty intriguing. With that, episode 5 is over.
It's certainly one of the more action-packed, interesting episodes out of the lot so far, but I'm not certain that makes it good. There are severe issues with the pacing of the dialogue, but we've come to expect that by now. There are times when Windblade and Hot Rod are talking where you can tell the two voice overs were recorded at separate times, and there's a lot of emotional disconnect because of it. The animation at times, though, is actually really good. It shows how much of an improvement it's had over the previous series. The mouth movements are tighter, closer to the words actually being spoken, and characters are far less jerky. It's so much better that Combiner Wars, and the series is so much more enjoyable because of it.
Well, that's episode 5! Wanna watch it for yourself? You can find it over on Go90. Please share your thoughts below in the Energon Pub forums! Do you agree with me? Do you disagree? I want to hear it! Thanks for reading, and I'll see you all next week! Mmm, yeah. Now THAT'S finger-licking good.
Well, it is now Thursday, we are past the embargo date, and many of us have had the chance to see Transformers: The Last Knight. With this all in mind, we begin today with part 2 of the Seibertron.com reviews for the film. Part 1 was nicely written up by member ZhGingaah, who attended the London Premiere, and now we have 3 more reviews, courtesy of our Seibertron.com staff. Later on, we will also have yet another review-ish post, which will come from Seibertron himself, as he was able to attend some very awesome events over the course of the week!
To go with the theme of Seibetron's trip to the movies, the reviews will be followed by some merch that we got at the premiere (some free and some at a cost).
Now, let's start with our first review, written by Seibertronian moderation Rodimus Prime. It is a spoiler-free review, so if you have yet to see the movie, it is safe for you to read. It can be found below:
Rodimus Prime wrote:his is a spoiler-free review for The Last Knight, which I saw on June 20th.
Overall, the film was a positive experience, but I guess that depends on your individual expectations. The pacing was more brisk than Age of Extinction, and the story was a little more engaging, but not by much. The characters were treated the same as before, mainly the Transformers. We get a little more in-depth look at the history of the Transformers, but only enough to make the events in the film convenient.
The main characters of the film this time around are Cade Yeager and Bumblebee. Some other characters are used sparingly, or just at the right moments to further the plot. The human characters are all portrayed well, none of them seem wasted, unlike some of the Transformers. The action is fast-paced, especially the car chases and battle scenes. Michael Bay definitely put his penchant for explosions to good use here. Fortunately, toilet humor was at a bare minimum, perhaps 2 or 3 instances. Adult language was much more prevalent, however. The film definitely earned its PG-13 rating there.
The story of the Transformers themselves was further revealed, even though the movie was still human-heavy. It does seem the Transformers share at least equal screen time and importance in this film, as opposed to the previous ones. This aspect seems to be improving with each movie. There were a few things left unexplained, and the ending was definitely left open for the sequel which is intended for 2019, with or without Michael Bay. I rate this film on the level of Age of Extinction, with a somewhat thin story and a lot of action. If you liked that film, you will like this one.
Now from here on out, we are in some spoiler territory. So if you do not want to read any spoilers for your upcoming film experience, Stop Here!
Spoiler Alert! Spoiler Alert!
Got it? Good.
To start off our spoiler-ish review section, We have a review from Canadian News Staff member William-James88, who certainly had a different experience from Rodimus Prime when it comes to the movie. Read up:
William-James88 wrote:Wrap your head around this one: human character Santos, played by Santiago Cabrera, has more screen time than Optimus Prime and Megatron COMBINED.
Who is Santos? Who cares! I sure didn't. And he is far from being a main character in this. But that fact that another random human addition to the ever expanding human cast of the Transformers franchise has more screen time than who should be the franchise's hero and villain is quite dissapointing.
Yes, once again, after what I thought was an improvement in AOE, the robots get the shaft in a story about not one but 2 chosen humans saving the day.
Here is a massive spoiler: that big three headed dragon you see in the trailers is part of the final battle and he does absolutely nothing. Neither does Drift or Crosshairs. And all the cool robot parts are in the trailer. Stitching all the shots from the Optimus vs Bumblebee fight from the trailers gives you the entire fight you see on screen, bar the resolution. What you don't see in the trailers is the ton of human stuff that no one watches these movies for. That's quite sad to me.
I had faith in this film. There was a writer's room, a sense that people cared. But it seems nomatter who is writing, they are dictated to make unfunny jokes, racial stereotypes, and mcguffins galore wrapped in nonsensical plots.
Case in point, the titular Last Knight. There is a lot of time dedicated to the Last Knight, and him discovering who he is, but the finale and end game isn't linked to him.There isn't a purpose to him since the mcguffin is related to another character. There is also a ton of plot holes and actual movie making errors, such as Sqweek's arm changing between shots, using the wrong microphone audio for Laura Haddock's voice in one scene, and robots being in robot mode and vehicle mode from one shot to the next with no sound or indication that they transformed.
It feels very amateurish from Michael Bay, who doesn't make continuity errors this noticeable usually. And of course, there are the afore mentioned plot holes which are more blatant than before, with the worst offender being Bumblebee's voice. Is it fine? Is it broken? Does it need fixing? TELL ME!!!!!
Oh and I will leave you with this, there are two scenes dedicated to talking about either Mark Wahlberg or Laura Haddock's sex life and they are both at least three times as long as the final fight of Megatron vs Optimus Prime.
Yay.
Next up, we have a review from Seibertronian News Staffer Mindmaster, who had a good experience from the movie. Check out his thoughts below.
Mindmaster wrote:Saw it tonight. Non-spoiler version: this is probably the best movie out of the five, without hyperbole. I liked it so much that it made me go out and finally get Voyager Optimus and Beserker on my way home, and I was slightly ambivalent about getting them before. Age of Extinction made me want Hound so bad, and now The Last Knight makes me want Cogman just as badly, if not more.
Spoiler-version: Things I liked and got excited about:
*Cogman. Literally the best thing ever. Dude had me rolling every time he showed up. If he doesn't show up in the next one, my hope in humanity will be dashed.
*Unicron: he's finally been name-dropped in the movie universe! Kinda expected him to get mentioned somewhere, but wasn't expecting a Prime reference in that he turns out to be Earth. And that post-credit scene absolutely sets up the next one, nobody deny it.
*The Nemesis Prime name-drop. Now I wish they'd revise the Shadow Spark Optimus Prime packaging to reflect that.
*The WWII scene; as a history major, this was what I was waiting for. I really hope we see toys based on Bumblebee and Hot Rod's WWII designs.
*The Decepticons; finally! The main ones have personalities! Mohawk retool of Hunt for the Decepticons Brimstone, pls.
*All the references to the previous movies: Simmons; the Ark during the Moon's destruction; the Pyramid still slightly destroyed from Devastator in Revenge of the Fallen; Starscream's head (Megatron even goes Hamlet on it); Viviane name-dropping Shockwave and Soundwave when she gets kidnapped by Hot Rod; even Sam Witwicky gets a small nod.
And a few things I didn't like about it;
*Cogman; despite him being my favorite thing about the movie, he never transformed and combined with the Aston Martin like they pre-movie hype led us to believe. Was very disappointed, but optimistic that it might happen in the next one.
*Dinobots; once again, they get shafted as far as screen time is concerned. I wasn't happy that they showed up for less time than Age of Extinction, and they never even transformed.
Kinda irritated about it, but whatevs I guess.
*The Decepticons; wished they had survived to see the end, especially Nitro.
*The Knights of Cybertron: kinda irritated how it takes all twelve for them to combine into Dragonstorm, yet the upcoming Leader-class figure only breaks down into two. I get that it would be a nightmare to engineer a twelve-bot dragon combiner, but still.
*To a lesser degree, Hot Rod's gun. No further comments.
All in all, this movie did a lot more right than all the others. Thinking about the previous ones, I didn't really have a favorite; the first one was my least favorite, then the next three kinda were tied. They never beat each other out because they all had an equal amount of things I liked and disliked. But The Last Knight? To me, it unquestionably had more right than wrong. Definitely the most Transformer-y of the franchise. I think we're finally getting on the right track as far as Transformers movies are concerned, and I've regained my confidence in the movies.
To finish off with the longer sort of reviews, here are some of my thoughts on the movie, which I rated as an overall enjoyable experience, but one that could have done a bit better while still being worth the trip.
D-Maximus_Prime wrote:I liked the con stuff, like we actually had some good cons stuff starting, but it got cut off pretty quick, which is a shame. though we still have Megatron, Berserker, and maybe Barricade. Hot Rod felt good but really needed more screen time (we can agree on cool ass weapon though). Cogman was the main cybertronian presence, and he was a good character, though I was bummed that he was the main cybertronian presence throughout much of the film. And we had his actual headmaster part cut. Boo. And then Crosshairs, Drift, and Hound are barely in the film basically. Like, only in some scenes. Hot Rod was in more scenes, and I feel he was under-represented.
Also, topspin had Leadfoot's head.
Transformations were good too. Sqweeks was the only one not to transform in the film, and they did it a lot. Spent some good time looking at the transformations too.
I felt the first maybe half to 2/3 of the film was on the right track, but the last bit kinda fell off the rails some for me. Felt rushed and incomplete, like a shadow of what was intended.
Definitely feels like it could have easily been 2 movies, or 3 hours, and things would have gone to the potential the film really had.
I did really like how much Megatron used his arm cannon though, and I really feel that they cut a whole part about where Quintessa somehow rebuilt Megatron from Galvatron, made him a knight's body, and that red bit on his face, which he had in the film and was a sign of Quintessa control,
showed that he was doing her bidding, hence some of the events in the film. I also liked Bee in the film, though I think it really set some stuff up for the Bee movie. sir Burton said he was much different in the 1940's, like much more cruel and not ever referred to as nice, and maybe that is where the Bee movie will explore: murder and rage bot to kind Bee.
I actually did not take Quintessa's "death" scene as death. It almost appeared as if she simply left that shell in a shower of electrical current, only to show up in human form in the id credits scene. I liked Sqweeks, but definitely see how he was kind of a waste. I thought Izzy was a waste too, which is a shame, but the movie didn't feel like it really needed her, or for her to be a main character. I only saw Grimlock and Slug, and it was disappointing not to see Strafe or Scorn.
It was also sad that those dinobots we did see disappeared completely really quickly.
I don't want anyone to think i didn't enjoy myself or the movie. I did. I just feel it had more potential, and time and too much trying to fit into a thin plot did it in
Finally, having seen the film themselves, we have a few other thoughts from fellow Seibertronians, some of whom got the point across very good in some short sentences. Check them out below.
It Is Him wrote:The first hour offered surprising promise and fun, followed by an hour of bloat, and ended with an action sequence that just didn't take well enough of advantage of the great robot cast introduced in the beginning.
It was better than AoE, and ultimately I'm glad I saw the movie.
Randomhero wrote:I just got out of it and i really enjoyed it. its not perfect in the slightest but i had fun.
however i walked away saying "so they stopped sucking the earth dry but isnt cybertron still colliding with the planet? they saved Earth but isnt Unicron still waking up?" oh well it was a fun ride.
zko wrote:I liked it, I've liked all the Bay movies pretty well, and this one was my favorite.
It played out a bit like the plot of season 1 and 2 of prime as a Bay movie, mixed with some of the G1 episode where they go back to medieval times and also the old kids read along book "When Continents Collide" had some stuff in there that seemed to be almost reflecting some biblical, book of revelations stuff with the plot about the horns, the dragon, the seal etc, but that wasn't carried too far.
KVO Prime wrote:I was disappointed... disappointed in myself to get so excited ...AGAIN... for a let down. What an incoherent piece of garbage. After a while I started timing it to see if any scene lasted longer than 2 seconds before violently jerking back somewhere else. Don't they have stabilization gyroscopes? Jeezus.. and all the bots shown ONCE for their toy placement was absurd.
all_the_primes wrote:This movie was a mess. Straight to to the point: I will not watch it again. Okay, maybe when I am incredibly bored... But I'd rather be watching Sesame Street, TFP or Inglorious Basterds, I respect myself that much.
TLK movie felt overwhelmingly unfocused and pacing was too fast/poor to the point that I lost focus on what the story(s) was about. If you are looking for some robot fighting action, it's there, but nothing groundbreaking. Over all, (in the words of Anthony Fantano) not good.
...
OVERALL/FINAL THOUGHTS/TLDR: This movie was godly unfocused, probably the most unfocused movie I've seen to date (an impressive feat). I could go on and bag on this movie for days, but I did find it enjoyable at some very certain times (surprisingly so), but if had an opportunity to watch it again, I'd gladly decline. In fact, after writing this review and leaving a great lot of critiques out, I realize how much I did not enjoy this movie.
Well, that is all we have room for in today's review post. As you might have seen, the movie was nothing particularly spectacular, but it did have some good moments and some good fun, depending on who watched it. It definitely wasn't perfect, and it definitely had some issues, but in the end it is still a toss up over who will like it and who won't.
We hope these reviews were helpful to you. We hope they were informative and helpful. Let us know if you go to check out the movie, and let us know what you thought of the movie in the comments section below!
Now, here is some merchandise either aquired for free or at cost by xrotorstormx and myself, as we went during the Optimus Prime Tuesday showings. xrotorstormx picked up some Last Knight inspired drink cups, a popcorn bowl, and a Bumblebee shirt from her experience, whereas yours truly got an Optimus Prime shirt and a lanyard with a Last Knight inspired card.
Fellow Seibertronian ZhGingaah was able to attend the London premiere for Transformers: The Last Knight, meaning that we now have a full review for the movie! The spoilers are clearly marked out in the piece, and there is a buffer zone in this news write-up, but if you'd rather avoid them altogether, we have a separate discussion thread for non-spoiler movie discussion right here in the Energon Pub!
Also included below is a recording of the initial Michael Bay comments at the event, some images of the crowd, cast and set-up - in addition the ones already seen here - and at the very end, some spoilerrific listicles of likes, dislikes and WTF moments. Check it all out below, and let us now what you think once you've seen the movie for yourselves!
Well, that's (not) just Prime...
'Transformers: The Last Knight', then; Michael Bay's (really-this-time-honest) last hurrah, Mark Wahlberg's (self-professed) last instalment, possibly (please Primus, let it be) the last time we need to stage one of these interventions.
Yeah, this movie is 'that guy' - they 'am what they am', they're not afraid to make a song and dance about it, they simply will not be ignored and they're not changing (transforming?) for anyone. So every few years when they put on a big number, all of us long-term friends jump in and try to sort this guy out, calm 'em down a little...
Having started off with the best of intentions in 2007, two years later we're telling them to knock it off with the hyperactive humans whose contribution to plot forwarding is inversely proportional to their screen-time; we're also having to tell them to not say 'scrotum' in front of the children.
Another couple of years and once again, we're trying to get them to ease off on the vacuous humans taking up valuable minutes. We convince them to take their time with their next big production, have another year at it, 'work that rich thirty year old mythology, baby, yeah'! Oh. Underage sex references, transformium and Chinese product placement... Right. That's it. You're on your...
Oh. Okay. Big Imax 3D screen - great balls of fire over the Paramount logo. Dark Ages England. Indistinguishable from magic... Right, okay this isn't bad, this is... is that really Stanley Tucci?! I'm not sur.....HOLY FRIGGIN' NORA, IS THE CINEMA MOVING?! THIS IS INTENSE!! WOOOOOOH!!
And we're suck(er)ed in... again.
To be fair though, what TLK gets absolutely right is getting the Transformers on screen (at the same time as the core human cast) pretty much right from the get-go. Whilst clearly set in 'The Bayverse', the first 40 minutes or so kinda have the feel of an extended G1 cartoon episode... and I mean that in the best possible way.
While previous movies gave us a tease and then put most of the bots back in their playbox for half an hour or more, here we're quickly introduced to our 'character of the week', Isabela Moner's Izabella, and within minutes we see (and hear!) from all these new toys (er, 'important characters') including Sqweeks (who isn't annoying and if kids find him cute, fine), Barricade, Megatron, Steelbane (not name-checked), Drift and Hound. Oh and Bumblebee; yes, of course everyone's favourite peg-warmer is there...
And just like a G1 episode, Megatron's got a kerrrazy plan for some McGuffin or other, he's taking advantage of our human pals Morshower and Lennox (or is he? - *wink wink*) and... did... did you just see that? Did Megatron just do Suicide Squad? Is this film taking the proverbial? (The answer to that, given that one of Vivian Wembley's family is apparently played by the actress who brought Martha Wayne to life in another DCU 'classic', is yes. Yes it is!)
Like it or not, Bay's movies pretty much always have a 'humorous' element to them. It's a coping mechanism for the audience, I guess - a counterbalance to all the death and destruction and MORE ASPLOSIONS!! And we can all do the bitching and moaning thing or we can accept that, for better or worse, this is what you're gonna get in a Transformers movie. Except this time, it's ever so subtly different; your mileage may vary, but I genuinely found this movie to be quite self-deprecating!
The Suicide Squad 'thing' - you could write it off as a rip-off, or crap homage. But the Martha thing makes me think that someone's poking fun here. We all love Steve Jablonsky's incredible scores on these films, right? But haven't we heard 'Arrival To Earth' more than enough by now? Oh, not like this, we haven't! (Properly funny meta-gag!) There's so much tongue in cheek - Vivian shouting from inside Hot Rod 'at least tell me I've been abducted by one of the famous ones' (because who'd want to be kidnapped by Drench, amirite?)! Cogman doing... well, pretty much anything! You and I already know it - a 'British' accent (aka an erudite English form of Received Pronunciation) lets you get away with blue bloody murder...
...which Anthony Hopkins and Jim 'Downton Abbey' Carter do. Apparently part-scripted, part-improv, these two are just nuts. They can deliver all these ridiculous lines and still give it 'the Shakespeare' bit and make it sound like the end of days is upon us, all hope is lost but by jingo we're going to have a jolly good time while we stiff upper lip it out, what what! Cogman is the standout new character in this film - loyal servant and sociopathic crazybot in equal measure, he's as much of a split personality as TLK is itself.
And that's the rub - when it's being silly, TLK is good fun. When it (finally!) embraces the deep mythos of Transformers and attempts to induct all these 'popcorn-blockbuster-watchers' ever deeper into the world of Cybertron and all that, things become little more than perfunctory. Full disclosure - I love Peter Cullen as Optimus, even as Bayverse Optimus, but Dark of The Moon remains the only Transformers movie where he's been around for the whole thing (faked death aside - ooh, hashtag spoilers from 2011 there), and annoyingly he's not had any 'decent' dialogue since the first half of DOTM - most of AOE was expositional or 'out of character' (a debate for another time) and despite being in SOOO many trailers, he really doesn't figure until the last half, maybe third, of TLK.
Frank Welker gets possibly the better deal - Megatron gets to swan around being a nasty piece of work, the 'Izy rescuing Sqweeks' scene from the trailers shows his disdain for 'lower' forms of life, we even get a 'Decepticons, retreat!' for the fanboys. But his time playing off against Cullen's Prime is limited again, sadly. That said, there's one interaction between the pair that's hugely reminiscent of TF:TM (1986)... but no, not what you're thinking. It's a nice nod and if you're anything like me, you'll be cursing (even more of) the choices made by the writers of AOE. What could / should have been...
So by now you're thinking 'I've read a thousand words and I can't tell if you really liked it or not, lad'! To be brutally honest, I'm not sure either... no, that's not quite fair. As an 'Imax 3D experience', this was f-bomb-ing epic. Say what you want about Michael Bay and some of his choices, edits (there was a lot filmed and then cut for this film apparently) and sense of humour, but (ready the stock phrase for launch) his action sequences are absolutely phenomenal.
And as has generally been the case with each film, the scope of the effects have gotten bigger each time but Bay's also learned / chosen to reign the camerawork in as time's gone on - there's less crazy-breakneck panning and swivelling, there's some really nice occasional use of slo-mo to let you really see everything in all that glorious ultra high definition glory - it's why I can't quite remember all the nerdy bits you want to know (even though I wouldn't tell you all of them even if I could), you're just too busy taking in the spectacle. Is that style over substance? I guess, but if you can do style over substance in the best possible way, this 'film' does. Did I say film? Meh... I suppose it is, just about. It's really a thrill ride with some substance.
The 'substance' that is there is presented in time honoured fashion - Event brings McGuffin to Earth, heroes and villains battle for McGuffin leading to further McGuffin leading to final showdown. So far, so formulaic. Now for the science part - pay attention... and here we be getting spoilery a bit, so brace yourselves...
BIGGER SPOILERS FROM HERE
...right, you with me?
Transformers: Prime then. You watched it didn't you? Whaddaya mean, no?! It's the best TF series there's been (TF:A and BW fans can save that row for another day). Anyway, if you're not familiar with it, this'll all be new to you. If you are a Prime aficionado, and particularly if you're enough of an 'Aligned' continuity fan to have a copy of 'The Covenant of Primus' book / bible / massive insignia thing, then some of what's glimpsed in TLK will make sense. I say some, because to quote Optimus from G1's 'The Rebirth', 'every answer lead to a bigger question'.
We meet Quintessa, who I'm almost certain (three days time might prove me a liar here) refers to herself as 'the Prime of Life'. Now, that chimes very much with what we know of Quintus, one of the fabled Thirteen Primes, the first Transformers directly descended from Primus. The Thirteen were always meant to be 'omniversal' in TF fiction so that raises questions when Quintessa claims to be 'Optimus' creator'. I mean, you can interpret that in a few ways - literally (she might be, if Optimus isn't a 'Thirteen' Prime here), metaphorically (as the 'life-giving' portion of Primus, perhaps Quintus is responsible for all the Primes coming into being), or in a 'Hey, the writers just smacked out any old tosh' way again.
There's lots of other unanswered questions too - how and why did the Knights end up stuck on Earth? Sure, when you know what you know at film's end, you can start trying to hypothesise myriad reasons for the scenario we find our bots in, but it's not fully explained. Given how much expositional dialogue there is and how it (as per usual) starts to feel far too quickly rattled off by the end, that's not a great thing for those of trying to reconcile this series into something approaching a salient narrative - to be fair, if this writers’ room really is trying as hard as I think they are (but they don't want to overload and already bat-shit mental mainstream blockbuster), I think these spin-off movies and animated prequels and what not could actually be a lot of fun. But that doesn't help us in the here and now...
And where do the Dinobots disappear to again? And what's the point of Jerrod Carmichael's Jimmy? I mean, he's not terrible by any means, he's just kinda there, you wouldn't really miss him if he wasn't. Same can almost be said for Izzy, but she at least gives Mark Wahlberg the surrogate dad thing to do and they can both riff on the 'no sacrifice, no victory' thing that is very much back front and centre here.
Whilst I'm talking about fleshlings, I'd say this core cast is probably the tightest and most entertaining we've had in the series - Wahlberg, Haddock, Hopkins and Carter are all very good, Moner is perfectly cute in her scenes without going full Wesley Crusher to give the young'uns in the crowd their one to root for, Lennox and Morshower getting the best of the supporting roles, even if it's mostly exposition. For British TV fans, there's cameos from the likes of Rebecca Front (The Thick of it, Lewis) and IMDB swears Mrs Doyle from Father Ted was in there (one for the 2D re-watch or Bluray there) but Tony Hale (Arrested Development, Veep, Chuck) was hugely irritating as the NASA JPL guy - the (thankfully) brief scenes there are really quite irritating when they pop up and are pretty pointless in the grand scheme of things.
John Turturro is there as Seymour Simmons again too. On a payphone. From Cuba. Because. Because... John Turturro. I think. I mean, it's kinda cute that they recognise that Simmons had this all semi-sussed (somehow) from right back in the day... equally, I think they just wanted him to say scrotum again. Twice. Don't worry, it's not Devastator's. Or his. No, I think in a film that graphically destroys the star harvester pyramid from ROTF, crunches the ark from DOTM and describes the remains of Chicago and wherever else got trashed by the Decepticons as a 'no go area', it's a less than subtle suggestion that for the most part, the writers room want to wipe the slate clean, say 'bollocks' to much of what has gone before and go on to tell new stories off the back of this one. Yes, it unequivocally sets up a sequel. Yes, it's pretty obvious what they're going to have to deal with. And oh yes, there is a mid-credits sequence, so don't move too soon...
That's a lot of not a lot there isn't it? My 'review'. The film too, if you're being harsh. To be honest, this is the film AOE should have been - if you could somehow have had Cade save Optimus at the end of DOTM instead of taking a whole film over it, Lockdown appear and disappear at the start of this one with Optimus immediately setting off to find his creator, we wouldn't be missing much really.
The performances by the majority of the on-screen and voice over casts lift this to a higher level than the other sequels - if you concede that they all do pretty much the same thing in terms of story construction, this one (world-building issues and foibles notwithstanding) probably does it with the most style and panache. You know Bay makes shit blow up good, the car chases are fun, the scenery’s beautiful, the final set pieces are stupidly grand as they have to be.
The one possibly controversial conceit at the heart of this story, concerning Optimus... I enjoyed the pay off. For my money, it was a(nother) nice G1 Season 3 nod. Equally, knowing how some have bitched about a certain element of these movies for ten years now, I can understand if more than a few people really don't care for it - you'll know when you see it. For my money, it was preferable to (yet another) McGuffin.
Summary
In summary then, for those of you who perhaps wisely just scrolled down here and ignored all the ramblings - for better or worse, it's a Michael Bay Transformers movie, what the frigg were you expecting?! It is perhaps the best since the original. It is certainly the most spectacular to look at and the IMAX 3D thing certainly is not just marketing bollocks (there's that scrotum again), it really was astonishing. It is NOT (on its own) a jump forward in storytelling and mythology for this series - it DOES lay some massive groundwork but that NEEDS to built upon for this to have been truly worth all the hullaballoo. Harsh but fair, I'd have liked a bit more to love but there's less to hate than in previous outings. Go see it and don't think about it too hard til you've had time to rest your weary senses!
THINGS I LIKED:
The Autobot crew hiding out together - some nice character moments there. I love Crosshairs! And Wheelie's still kicking!
The opening Autobot+Human v Decepticon fight in the abandoned town. Sweet transformations and some fun ass-kickings.
Barricade getting a bit of chat! The con chat fizzles out quickly, but it's fun while it lasts.
The 'water fight' is stunnining. Opening scene in Arthurian times is also staggeringly good.
Cogman is a top lil bastard and I want to see him again. And his organ.
THINGS I DIDN'T LIKE:
Some of Quintessa's CGI looked a bit off - most of the film is AAA+, so that's annoying.
Too many dangly threads that need to be sussed 'next time'.
Why the Knights Temenos pretty much appeared outta nowhere - how hard could it be to find and keep stashed prior to now?!
The apparently simplicity with which Quintessa is dealt with. Sure, we don't need more McGuffins but it was all a little 'yeah, okay then'.
'Infernocus' who I think had a different name pretty much comes and goes. Meh. But the fact Quintessa has a combiner? Maybe Nexus Prime is about too...
No mention of Solus Prime, The Forge, Well of All Sparks etc.
SUPER SPOILERS:
Quintessa calls herself 'The Prime of Life', hitherto known in other continuities as Quintus Prime.
But is she really?! The Knights denounce her as Quintessa The Deceiver!
For being taken in by Quintessa, The Knights pass judgemnt on Optimus - "The sentence is death!" A nice nod to the Quintesson scenes in TFTM!
Christened 'Nemesis Prime', Quintessa's sway over Optimus is broken by Bumblebee finally activating his own voice after all these years, just as Nemesis is about to execute him.
The encroaching doom seen in the trailers is indeed Cybertron, under the control of Quintessa.
The horn you see on Earth in the trailers... not the Knights Temenos. *wink*
Yeah, you do see more than one horn... *wink*
Stonehenge is the access point to the power at the Earth's core... and what is down there. *wink*
That's not the Forge of Solus Prime we see Bumblebee waving about... at least, it isn't named as such and although it appears after the Knights scene, I don't know for sure if that's where he acquired it.
Cade is indeed The Last Knight... for what that's worth. It is in fact Vivian who is the most important character here.
Yes, wink wink, Prime fans, Earth is Unicron. Named and everything. And very much a thing going forward...
Gemma Chan who voices Quintessa also appears on screen. *Big Wink* (Get your Covenant of Primus out!)
SUPER SPOILERY WTFS:
If Vivian hadn't retrieved 'the staff' - then what? Maybe a 'Prime' like Optimus can get round that problem if he was one of The Thirteen / A knight (there's definitely a statue of a 'knight' that looks very like him... Like I said, they could start to create a satisfying story with this, but it could all be so much ROTF nonsense if they're not careful...
I like the whole 'Witwiccan' thing... but does this mean Shia / Sam and the clan are dead if Vivian is the last surviving descendant of Merlin? Maybe I misheard some of that bit...
Would Cybertron have become Unicron if the transfer had completed? Is Quintessa a Prime, an agent of Unicron, actually The Creator or what?
We don't see the techno-organic 'Quintessons' from AOE. But if Quintessa did create them, maybe they will be coming in TF6?
It’s the end of September, and THE REVOLUTION has started! The multi-issue, multi-brand crossover has officially begun. IDW does its best to meet big boys MARVEL and DC on the big kids playground, to crossover in a way that they hope is as popular as the big uns’ special events. Will it make the cut? And should you care enough to pick this up?
Back Cover Tease:
Explosions rip across Earth—and all sides blame OPTIMUS PRIME and the TRANSFORMERS! G.I.JOE refuses to go quietly—and they assemble heroes big enough to stop the invaders! ACTION MAN and M.A.S.K. fight for humanity— but where do ROM and the MICRONAUTS stand?
From New York Times-bestselling writers Cullen Bunn and John Barber—and superstar-in-the-making artist Fico Ossio—comes a collision of worlds, a clash of past and future, unlike anything that has come before.
The Revolution is here— take a stand!
As the resident staff Joe guy (who also collects TFs and vice versa) who has also lived through the earliest iterations of these brands in the 70's and 80's, it fell to me to try to make some sense of this newest comic-based crossover. Well actually, Va’al’s on a sabbatical and D-MACK already handled TAAO, so that’s why it really fell to me. And that nobody else wanted to do it.
Forgive me, I write this after a day of teaching 6th grade.
THE STORY:
Like the tease says, events have happened and they are BIG! Like BIG BEN and DUKE (GI JOE guys for you TF only folks) and ORE-13 BIG. Mount Everest going boom BIG! The supposed ‘melting’ of several Joes (whom most people probably don’t know) big. VICTORION and WINDBLADE… okay, I am not sure what to say. It’s a lot of action, mostly centered around TRANSFORMERS and GI JOE. Humans’ anxiety level is at an all time high over KING PRIME declaring Earth to be a part of the galactic council (I actually believe there is a lot of hard feelings over the no tech sharing thing from OP’s previous visit)—and all the negative attention being considered ‘galactically relevant’ might bring with it (like, oh, a Transformers’ war coming to Earth wasn’t bad enough before this? C’mon Optimus…).
MORE:
There’s lots of human armed military parties running around now, and it’s hard to keep caught up with who’s really on top. ROM’s book has military types showing up to make trouble for him in his series, that seem to be directly or indirectly ordered by General Joe Colton of G.I. JOE fame, but don’t seem to be regular GI JOE. The EDC was supposedly re-made into a new more global version, and now it appears that GI JOE, yes the real GI.JOE, is now the go to gang of military types to become government sanctioned, even after being shut down by that same government previously, it seems (I’m not good at keeping up with IDW GI JOE). The weird thing is, those EDC types, who know a lot about TRANSFORMERS are still around too, but it doesn't matter because their advice and intelligence is almost always totally ignored. And by the tease, it looks like even G.I. JOE will get superseded or at best aligned with ACTION MAN and MASK, eventually.
EDC out!
Sadly, MASK does not appear in this issue, except in the same short preview at the end that we have had in several other TRANSFORMERS issues, giving us background info (and showing us Miles Mayhem and a badly dissected Blitzwing), but it becomes pretty obvious how they will become a part of it.
So that’s this issue in a nut shell. Ore-13 is blowing up. TRANSFORMERS are blamed for it. GI JOE is tasked by the very anxious world leading U.S. President to take on the TRANSFORMERS—instead of the before created EDC military group.
VISUALS:
Fico Ossio on the art, colored by Sebastian Cheng, and lettered by the nigh-infamous Tom B. Long, is much better than average. Characters are recognizable as who they should be (if you know some of these obscure JOE folks) and portray their emotions well, although heads and faces are inconsistent; from really nice on MAIN FRAME and BIG BEN profiles and 3/4 shots, to somewhat misshapen, cartoonish, and elongated SCARLETT and JOE COLTON faces and heads on full body action shots, later on. The bots are well-detailed, but the artist shows a little bit of difficulty with them at times, especially in their faces, heads, and ‘ears’, but overall does a commendable, but uneven, job. There are some truly beautiful character portraits in there, but also some that are less than, making you wonder. Finally, the ROM images generally all feel a little off, which might be intentional if a theory I have holds up.
THE GREAT!
THE GOOD!
THE UGLY
UMM...HMMMmm...
The colors and lighting effects are well done, and work well with the line art to create an overall, visually acceptable product. TRANSFORMERS fans have had to deal with (have learned to appreciate) much ‘worse’ (opinion, of course). Tom B. Long does his normal magic with word bubbles, and sound effects, helping to move us through the action and story well.
SLL-SRRRAK!
DIALOGUE:
Character interactions feel pretty natural and help us to better understand their relationships. You can feel the coolness and calm that Optimus Prime is trying very hard to convey. You can hear Scarlett’s frustration and fury, and the military jargon that the JOEs incorporate feels realistic enough (even if the facial expressions and body language sometimes seem a little odd). There are character labels to help all of us identify the JOES, TFs, and others, if we did not already recognize them.
WRITING:
My opinion on human and TRANSFORMERS current status of interaction, as it has been written, has already been made public and sadly, has not changed after seeing this. This is the story that we’ve seen on Earth since the first early issues in Marvel G1. Humans just cannot understand Autobots versus Decepticons, and believe in the ‘all must be bad, if some are’ over generalization. Now, I do understand that you’re going to be upset if you believe the robots are just there to fight, steal, and destroy without any care for the native inhabitants, or if you’re thinking you are being misled by liars. But members of the EDC were starting to get it--to understand factions, and yet somehow their ideas and intelligence are mostly ignored. Grr… revenge!!!
“That one guy killed several of my good buddies way back when…DESTROY ALL OF THEM!”
I do like the idea of DIRE WRAITHs causing a lot of the misunderstandings, for their own ends that we are not entirely sure about. But ROM just showing up and doing what he did, without a word, where as in his own series, he’s been quite the chatty Cathy, making me and probably others believe that some of the events in ROM (this AXIOM dude that started out as a human in armor before ORE 13 was added to make him a superfreak) are most likely meant to drop clues about what may actually be going on here, with the JOES, and several other humans.
Being a little obvious, aren't we...?
I’m interested to see what part MASK plays, and VENOM of course, even if we know where they get the tech.
In different writing decisions, the GI JOE forces seem ready for immediate action even though they had seemed to be decommissioned (I have to re-read to look for time passage), but don’t seem to know anything about their target. They don’t come equipped with any weapons that do more than annoy the Transformers (except Jazz—why, must everyone always pick on Jazz?). How do you not know what kind of equipment and weapons you will need to even get close to winning a battle with them? Just ignore any EDC intel whatsoever. Now, yes, I do know that Soundwave's Operation Incapacitation took out MAINS’ (GI JOE Main Frame- I actually really dislike that nickname - MAINS- ugh), anti-Soundwave fryer, but before that the JOEs weren't really getting anywhere either. And... they don’t know that ‘the pink one’ uses swords??? What exactly have the GI JOE members been doing lately? And who was in charge of the intel for them? Or was this just sort of a run off half-cocked type mission (which is a bit confusing because Main Frame insists he was working on his Soundwave killing device for months using EDC intel—yes, he was paying attention!)?
OVERALL:
I’m interested, but with the few pieces we have along with this issue, I really, really, really hope that this overly lengthy and perhaps somewhat overused humans vs.TRANSFORMERs is resolved quickly and that everyone moves past it to work together against the DIRE WRAITHS and bad MICRONAUTS (Baron Karza, et al— who do not appear in this issue either), or some such thing like that (maybe it’s UNICRON!!!!!…)
The ORE-13 piece is probably the most interesting thing about the series for me so far, other than the official (finally) admittance/re-imagining that MASK vehicles are TRANSFORMERS based (see the DARK OF THE MOON for the first hints that it was coming, I really liked their Stealth Force attack car/alt modes.). Hasn’t been exactly said…yet, but highly hinted at.
Who should try this?
Casual 80’s childhood guy or gal all grown up: Hell yeah! You’d probably get a kick out of this with Transformers, GI JOE, ROM, ACTION MAN and coming up…Micronauts, and MASK! My childhood hath been brought back alive again! If only VISIONARIES would make an appearance! Ore-13 won't mean anything to you, but you don't need it to.
IDW Transformers Familiars: You may be a bit more hesitant. 'Our guys' are a focus for sure, but we’re not quite sure how they will come out when this all shakes out, and there was a lot of awesome stuff to like going on before this. They are the elder statesman and most successful comics of the bunch, and readers are not interested in losing the awesome ground that we have gained over recent years. There seem to be inconsistencies with current comic continuity, but not so huge that it can't get cleaned up. AND...we do get this ORE-13 thing to finally seem to finally, finally, shake out in full, so there's that!
IDW GI JOE Familiars: You may just feel good that GI JOE is coming back, again, but are probably frustrated that GI JOE is coming back, yet again, seemingly rebooted, yet again (I’m not as good and up on my IDW GI JOE). I feel very badly for hardcore JOE fans. I really hope this helps to get them the great fiction that they deserve (and hopefully more of a toy line too).
OTHERS: Tons of action! Aliens, robots, human elite army operatives, and end of the planet Earth peril, plus some cool new sophisticated TECHIE vehicles. Recognizable big name characters. Sounds like a try out to me! It reads like the big boys crossovers so far, with satisfactory art, I'd give it a go.
The race has begun. The journey and the finish are still in question. When the dust settles, let’s hope we all have the pieces to pick up where our favorites left us wanting more.
Generally, I believe that large crossovers are upsetting to most fandoms--or at least wanting to be mostly ignored or believed to be in another continuity. Especially when new directions are promised and ramifications can wreck what one might have been really enjoying in a separate monthly title prior to said crossover. We shall see.
TRANSFORMERS FAN SCORE out of for this first issue.
Evening Seibertronians, tonight we have a pictorial review of Transformers Generations 2016 Platinum Edition: Armada of Cyclonus! This '86 Movie inspired 3-pack includes the Unicron spawned Cyclonus, Scourge, and Decepticon Sweep (sporting a brand new head!). They all hail from the Classics/Universe/Generations era, and have some new competition with Combiner Wars and Titans Return. Has the throne been usurped? Let's scroll and have a look.
Namesake of the set, Cyclonus. Great as always, this time around he is sporting two hands capable of holding weapons (as opposed to the molded close fisted previous versions) and has a gun stolen from Generations Kup. While he doesn't have quite as nice a jet silhouette as the CW Voyager, I still feel he has the better robot mode.
Sweep leader Scourge is the only one completely unchanged (mold wise) in this set. This grudge match is a toss up. On one hand I prefer the wings on this version, but love the classic space boat alt mode of the Titans release.
And finally, Decepticon Sweep. Take Scourge to the barber shop for a hot shave, and what do you get? This fella. This new head sculpt is fresh take on what the Sweep clone army should look like and is a great addition to anyone's Unicron crew.
So what do these figures mean for your collection? Is it out with the old and in with the new, or long live Classics? Or can you still not let go of G1 even (haha wink wink). Let us know, and stay tuned to Seibertron.com: home for the best Galleries and Conversation around!
Official Synopsis:
THE END IS NIGH! Final battle erupts—the forces of G.I. JOE and the AUTOBOTS head-to-head (or head-to-toe, depending on the size difference) with the DECEPTICOBRA alliance! The fate of the universe hangs on every decision!
Lots of contributors listed for this issue:
Welcome friends and board mates, readers and lurkers. Today we celebrate the series that was Transformers Versus G.I. Joe. With issue number 13, this out-of-the-box, discussion causing series, has come to its final Earthly conclusion.
My name is Tigertack, I’ve read Transformers and G.I. Joe fiction (and a lot of other comic book and narrative book fiction as well) since I was but a young lad, borrowing comic books from my cousin Dan’s vast collections when 4-H had ended, and from the libraries that my mother worked at for one of her many jobs. Many of you know me from Seibertron as a former newsie, news admin, and Botcon attendee, sometime podcaster and reviewer.
After TF #54, this is not what I expected under the mask to look like.
Transformers Versus G.I. Joe was a series assigned to me review, mainly I think because Va’al thought that I needed to be tortured, maybe because no one else would do it…but more likely he wanted to challenge me, and as ‘the-resident-active-staff-member-who-is-also-involved-with-comics-and-enjoys-G.I.Joe-too’ it fell to me to try to relate to anyone reading these reviews about the latest iteration of a series that historically has never been what was really desired, but could be relied upon to be very different from the last version.
White haired and short-buzz cut...Race Bannon?
And so we have this interation, written, drawn, lettered, and colored by Tom Scioli all by himself, with John Barber editing and offering advice here and there. A dream come true for a creator who loves both franchises and their toys and comics… and it shows!
The next Billy figure to need an FSS version. Or maybe they could make a whole Scioli inspired set.
The series though, immediately caused a lot of water cooler talk, tweets and posts, as it looked and read like no previous TFvsGIJOE story ever really had. It was Tom’s universe and he was making it what he wanted, all the while paying homage to the people who came before him like Larry Hama, Simon Furman, and Bob Budiansky, and using other media influences that ranged from comics like Watchmen, Kirby drawn and written materials like New Gods and other works, to movies like Rocky and Firestarter.
And what a world it was: Decepticobra alliances, GI JOE and Autobots fighting then working together, Earth getting eaten by Seibertron (har!), Scarlett and Snake Eyes becoming headmasters, Megatron getting a taste for human flesh, drug addicted Autobots, greenery added to Cybertron, robot invasions and government reactions, a general who never wears his cap straight, Cobra La, the Death of Optimus Prime, and Megatron wishing to dissolve the sun for its energy. ENERGY is a fantastic way to describe the series, as there was always something new thing different, something alive about the series, and it always brought a nervous, excited energy to the reader.
I always found it hard to write about this series because most of the time, I felt as many did…there was this imaginary line drawn and you were usually either on one side or the other of it as far as this series was concerned: you liked the creativity, newness and energy involved with the series, or it had the polar opposite effect on you, and you simply hated it. The side I started on was the side that hated it, the art being the biggest turn off to me as a former artist in training, I knew I could do better and it irked me. But as the series progressed it was not enough to just complain about the art and the ‘weirdness’ that was happening. I had to look for something to appreciate, a way to enjoy it. And I did. I liked it for its differences, its surprises, its always making its own way, and telling its own story while paying homage to so many great influences.
"Always in the eye of the beholder, this series has been."
And so, in conclusion, we celebrate the life of this series, and its final issue…which even though it is the final issue, still manages to pack in surprises and homages as it is ending. It’s a double issue and its packed until the very last page. I know many of you either read it and enjoyed its Lord of the Rings ending, its creative use of G.I. Joe Retaliation and Transformers movie references, the use of previous classic Joe and TF comic panels, and its downright original Atlas (it ain’t Unicron!), the always perfect hair of Billy, the use of Ultra Magnus and his white cab, and the marriage that you just could not have predicted. In all its wild ENERGY laden pages it never-stopped, until it had to stop.
This was one of my favorite pages...ever!
Movie Megs ultimate combiner
With these last words, I say that we celebrate the passing of this iteration of Transformers Versus G.I. Joe, and laud its creator and collaborators, its inspirations and its ENERGY. We can truly say that there never was a series like this, and there most likely will never be a series like this again (except in 2025 when we see ‘Shipwreck Space Pirate’). Kudos Mr. Scioli and Mr. Barber.
For the next installment of Transformers and G.I.Joe action we'll see what the new 'Revolution' has for us. Thanks for reading.
’Til All Are One! Yo Joe!
Revolution?
Some random images I had wanted to use until the review went a different way.
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