First Two Episodes of Machinima's Transformers Titans Return Animated Series Released

well...*sigh* looks like I'll have to wait til someone posts them on YouTube! + it's daft that they're not on YouTube to begin with? coz Machinima has their own channel on there, but YES!!! I'm sure it'll happen, give enough time

Stuartmaximus wrote:it's daft that they're not on YouTube to begin with

No, it's not.

Those two episodes were worth it. I wish they would do a full length movie with a G1 script. Wishful thinking.

Burn wrote:Which means I was able to get up in the morning and watch them whilst sitting on the toilet.

Bring on the morning bowel movements Titans!

thanks for that mental image, whilst I'm eating my breakfast

Burn wrote:

Stuartmaximus wrote:it's daft that they're not on YouTube to begin with

No, it's not.

Why does it not surprise me in your response in the fact that Machinima decided to broadcast this series on a website that limits its audience due to region restrictions! and I'm sure that other countries that cannot!!! view this series due to aforementioned restrictions would agree with you, and tell me.... where did Machinima broadcast Combiner Wars again? that's riiight! on their YouTube channel

and where will this current series eventually end up anyway? that's riiight! Youtube! so why not put it there in the first place

Wow.....while the voice talent is better.....and the animation is ok....that's about it. It's not as awful as the Combiner Wars cartoon, but there are still plot holes galore and cringe-worthy dialogue. It doesn't bode well for the rest of the series.

So... any option for the 7ish billion people who don't live in the US?

Omegatron. wrote:So... any option for the 7ish billion people who don't live in the US?

Not yet AFAIK. If it's done the same way as the CW series was (and all signs point to this being the case) then we'll just have to chill out until Machinima decides to put it out on their Youtube channel.

But hey, bright side, we get to enjoy a few more suffering-free hours than the US viewers do! (Okay I should really stop bashing this series until I've given it an honest-to-goodness try, shouldn't I.)

Stuartmaximus wrote:and where will this current series eventually end up anyway? that's riiight! Youtube! so why not put it there in the first place

If I may step in with my trying-super-hard-to-sound-knowledgeable tuppence: branding deals or whatever. As best I understand it, Machinima/Hasbro/whoever is getting a pretty penny directly from go90 in return for their service being the exclusive carrier of the show within the US (and I'm sure, if go90 could have been bothered in the last nearly YEAR AND A HALF to expand their service beyond the US, it'd be exclusive to them in those countries too).

That's also why when the CW episodes went up on Machinima's Youtube channel (originally at least), they were region-locked so viewers in the US couldn't watch them - hence they have to use go90, exclusive distributor, more money for the folks behind the series, it all comes back around to that extra money. It may not seem to make sense for us, the viewers, but it sure as shootin' makes sense for the people deciding how the series will be distributed.

Qwan wrote:we'll just have to chill out until Machinima decides to put it out on their Youtube channel.

or someone else? coz it doesn't HAVE to be Machinima that puts in on YouTube, no doubt others will post it there too!(& YES I know that if they do that, they run the risk of it getting taken down! but that's the kinda world that we live in today).

Stuartmaximus wrote:

Burn wrote:Which means I was able to get up in the morning and watch them whilst sitting on the toilet.

Bring on the morning bowel movements Titans!

thanks for that mental image, whilst I'm eating my breakfast

Burn wrote:

Stuartmaximus wrote:it's daft that they're not on YouTube to begin with

No, it's not.

Why does it not surprise me in your response in the fact that Machinima decided to broadcast this series on a website that limits its audience due to region restrictions! and I'm sure that other countries that cannot!!! view this series due to aforementioned restrictions would agree with you, and tell me.... where did Machinima broadcast Combiner Wars again? that's riiight! on their YouTube channel

and where will this current series eventually end up anyway? that's riiight! Youtube! so why not put it there in the first place

Just in case you've forgotten, you're ignoring me remember.

Stuartmaximus wrote:

Burn wrote:Which means I was able to get up in the morning and watch them whilst sitting on the toilet.

Bring on the morning bowel movements Titans!

thanks for that mental image, whilst I'm eating my breakfast

Burn wrote:

Stuartmaximus wrote:it's daft that they're not on YouTube to begin with

No, it's not.

Why does it not surprise me in your response in the fact that Machinima decided to broadcast this series on a website that limits its audience due to region restrictions! and I'm sure that other countries that cannot!!! view this series due to aforementioned restrictions would agree with you, and tell me.... where did Machinima broadcast Combiner Wars again? that's riiight! on their YouTube channel

and where will this current series eventually end up anyway? that's riiight! Youtube! so why not put it there in the first place

It’s called contracts dude. Go90 probably helped finance the series so they have exclusive distribution of it for now. If you wanna throw a fit and say YouTube remember they have their own exclusive service too, YouTube Red which you have to pay for so if YouTube was contracted like go90 than guess what? It’d be on youtubered and you’d be throwing a fit you have to pay to watch

Watching the episodes, I was pleasantly surprised. Sure, nothing amazing, but so far things aren't that bad.

do you think that using a proxy would bypass the region lock?

I'd like to see the episodes, but hey, I'm one of the rest-of-the-world people who doesn't live in the US.

Y'know what? It was okay. It's not going to win any awards but the longer runtime allows for just a bit more character interaction than CW did. The acting is stiff and someone needs to tell the voice mixer that, if a character is interrupted, the other character should be SPEAKING right away. Awkward pauses abound. Buuuuuuuuut. It didn't suck.
Also apparently they still haven't made any more character models for the combiner components except those 3 Constructicons, so they're just going to stand around being giant all day as if they're permanently fused.
I won't say I'm looking forward to it but I'm not dreading it either. It's going to be an okay use of 20ish minutes each week.

So far, the worst I can say about is that the Mistress of Flame still have some pretty terrible acting to the point that it almost feels like a parody of old bad English anime dubs. Lots of random pauses in her dialogue and bizarre emphasis on certain syllables in her words here and there.

Other than that, everyone else either sounds just okay at best (Windblade, Optimus) or bored at worst (Rodimus/Hot Rod, Metroplex, Perceptor). Megatron's just a cameo in the first episode and doesn't get any lines, so that's a shame so far. Windblade, at least, is no longer determined to kill everyone, so there's that.

The animation looks unchanged though the framerate, while still pretty poor, admittedly does not look quite as horrendous (for the most part) as it did in Combiner Wars.

As far as what little there is of the story, things so far just seem to be happening for the sake of happening. Little is really explained (which was par for the course for Combiner Wars) and the most bonkers thing of Starscream coming back in Trypticon's body was already spoiled by a trailer,
so there's less of a surprise to that here.

As of now, it doesn't seem to be quite as poor a first impression as Combiner Wars' beginning, but nothing too special yet either. Mostly just mild mediocrity at this point. We'll see how things play out in the weeks to come.

Sabrblade wrote:Episodes 1 AND 2 are both now on go90:

https://www.go90.com/videos/2NhyXKyeaJh

https://www.go90.com/videos/8Ebc1KREnea

i appreciate the links
thank you

Yo, non-U.S. viewers! Until we get an official venue for watching outside the U.S., YouTuber Angelina Pax has put the episodes up broken down into chunk form. Here's a playlist with all the parts for episodes 1 and 2:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOtelJ6KGnO-wOGwFf3sMt_H5kRU4RQ9O

Burn wrote:

Stuartmaximus wrote:

Burn wrote:Which means I was able to get up in the morning and watch them whilst sitting on the toilet.

Bring on the morning bowel movements Titans!

thanks for that mental image, whilst I'm eating my breakfast

Burn wrote:

Stuartmaximus wrote:it's daft that they're not on YouTube to begin with

No, it's not.

Why does it not surprise me in your response in the fact that Machinima decided to broadcast this series on a website that limits its audience due to region restrictions! and I'm sure that other countries that cannot!!! view this series due to aforementioned restrictions would agree with you, and tell me.... where did Machinima broadcast Combiner Wars again? that's riiight! on their YouTube channel

and where will this current series eventually end up anyway? that's riiight! Youtube! so why not put it there in the first place

Just in case you've forgotten, you're ignoring me remember.

aren't you?

Burn wrote:

Stuartmaximus wrote:it's daft that they're not on YouTube to begin with

No, it's not.

ok so just before I went to sleep last night I went on go90 and figured I'd try, as I am on the west coast, and surprisingly they were there!. I'm just posting this morning because obviously, was too tired to post my thoughts. But I will say moving forward...I think I'll just wait until Tuesday Mornings, no need for these episodes to dominate my thoughts, and rob me of sleep on Monday Nights heh..

ok initial thoughts...well its definitely better than CW, but then so is a dumpster fire. Pretty cool they got Victor Caroli to return as the narrator, I wasn't expecting that, though the first 2 minuets recapping CW was as good waste of time.

I thought some of the dialogue was cringe worthy. In some parts it was ok, but then I think at some point whoever wrote the script realized, the script they wrote was the same amount they wrote for CW, and didn't understand they were going to have twice the animation length, so they had to pad it out. Some of the lapses between lines make Bill Shatner sound like Shakespeare. Mistress of Flame would fit right in with the sandy Frank dub of Gamera vs Guiron.

Some pluses- It was nice to see the individual Combiner components actually exist in this world as independent personalities. Also Perceptor, the *new* character for this series was probably the most decent fleshed out character thus far.

As for the story, I'm not sure what the motivation was for 'the gods" as Starscream refers to them, to transfer his spark to Trypticon. Also I'm getting this whole Mothra vs Godzilla vibe when looking at the impending battle between Metroplex & Trypticon (In the original 1964 film, Mathra was portrayed as older and weak, which is why the Twin fairies knew she would not survive her encounter with Godzilla)

The main characters are basically all split up, looks like It's up to Windblade to "Get the band back together"...whch I assume will take up a good portion of this shows story. Also...one wonders how the council got formed anyway...Starscream was corrupt, The Mistress of Flame is incompetent and doesn't know anything about anybody it seems, and Rodimus doesn't want to be a leader obviously...

There are two entries currently on Wikipedia that were not revealed in previews, and were not on TF wiki as of yesterday, for obvious reasons. I always take Wiki with a grain of salt because...well anyone can enter information into it. But there's:

Tay Zonday as the Chorus of the Primes (I can only guess this was who Rodimus was speaking to when he abdicated the Matrix)

&

Robin Atkin Downes as Overlord. This intrigues me a bit. But we have not seen his name in the credits (as far as I know), and nothing has been hinted at toward his appearing in this series. I mean it would be cool to see a few more characters show up, there are still eight episodes left. I'm just not sure with the limited budget it we will get any more surprises.

Since recently obtaining TLK Blu Ray Target exclusive with CW edited together as a movie, I was thinking to myself, when its all said and done TR will be between 100-110 minuets, pretty much a full movie. Watching Justice League Action has taught me, you can do quite a bit in 10 minuets to make a good and fun action packed story with only a few characters. Now I understand TR has probably 10% or less the budget of a cable network TV animated series, but if the pace does not even out a little, we could have the opposite problem we had with CW. Instead of not enough time, there could be in fact too much time, and this could feel like it drags on. I hope things pick up a bit, I guess we'll find out soon enough.

Tay Zonday is the Chorus of the Primes, yes.

http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Tay_Zonday


As for the Overlord voice credit, that strikes me as another of Wikipedia's typical unfounded claims.

Are you sure about that narrator credit, though?

Sabrblade wrote:Yo, non-U.S. viewers! Until we get an official venue for watching outside the U.S., YouTuber Angelina Pax has put the episodes up broken down into chunk form. Here's a playlist with all the parts for episodes 1 and 2:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOtelJ6KGnO-wOGwFf3sMt_H5kRU4RQ9O

I'll wait until an official non-us channel appears. Watching it in bits defeats the point of having 10 minute episode

Anyone else having trouble understanding what Hot Rod said during his scene with the Matrix and Vector Sigma (?), or whatever he was talking to? I could not understand anything he was saying nor could I understand the "Quintesson"/"Vok" sounding voice to whom he was speaking. I picked up a few words, but most of what they were saying was inaudible.

Seibertron wrote:Anyone else having trouble understanding what Hot Rod said during his scene with the Matrix and Vector Sigma (?), or whatever he was talking to? I could not understand anything he was saying nor could I understand the "Quintesson"/"Vok" sounding voice to whom he was speaking. I picked up a few words, but most of what they were saying was inaudible.

Yeah, the audio quality in that scene was pretty bad, especially for the Chorus of the Primes.

leokearon wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Yo, non-U.S. viewers! Until we get an official venue for watching outside the U.S., YouTuber Angelina Pax has put the episodes up broken down into chunk form. Here's a playlist with all the parts for episodes 1 and 2:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOtelJ6KGnO-wOGwFf3sMt_H5kRU4RQ9O

I'll wait until an official non-us channel appears. Watching it in bits defeats the point of having 10 minute episode

Me too pal I'm not watching the bloody thing in icky little bits, a thing btw that's around about 10 mins long each(yes! the runtime may vary for each episode)

Sabrblade wrote:Are you sure about that narrator credit, though?

I have nothing to go on other than my ears at this point since there is nothing on any site that I have found. I checked to make sure Victor Caroli was still alive (he doesn't have a page on wiki, but does on voicechasers). If its not him...it's the best impersonation I've ever heard. I hope something definitive comes out soon confirming it.

Do you guys want screen captures from these episodes in the meantime?

While I'd love Perceptor's voice to sound more like his G1 self, I actually don't mind this version of his voice.

Hey Hasbro ... any chance of us getting a Mistress of Flame toy, or a head variant of Hot Rod with the face shield. That looked oddly cool!

Ugh, it seems like the audio levels for Hot Rod are all off.

Animation looks great, but the poor directing of the voice actors still stands.

Yay! Familiar looking Seekers in episode 2!

Seibertron wrote:While I'd love Perceptor's voice to sound more like his G1 self, I actually don't mind this version of his voice.

Hey Hasbro ... any chance of us getting a Mistress of Flame toy, or a head variant of Hot Rod with the face shield. That looked oddly cool!

I want to see Face shield Hot Rod

Seibertron wrote:Anyone else having trouble understanding what Hot Rod said during his scene with the Matrix and Vector Sigma (?), or whatever he was talking to? I could not understand anything he was saying nor could I understand the "Quintesson"/"Vok" sounding voice to whom he was speaking. I picked up a few words, but most of what they were saying was inaudible.

Oh god I thought that was my phone. Is that really the audio in the scene?

unless it's a spoiler or plot point that gets resolved in a later episode, which'll have the scene replayed but with clearer audio

o.supreme wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Are you sure about that narrator credit, though?

I have nothing to go on other than my ears at this point since there is nothing on any site that I have found. I checked to make sure Victor Caroli was still alive (he doesn't have a page on wiki, but does on voicechasers). If its not him...it's the best impersonation I've ever heard. I hope something definitive comes out soon confirming it.

I dunno, I feel like something like getting Victor Caroli back would be something that this show would want to be up front about like how they got Peter Cullen and Judd Nelson. The narrator didn't sound that much like Caroli to me, as when Jon Bailey got Caroli to narrate one of his BotCon filmfest videos a few years ago, Caroli sounded pretty much exactly the same in that video as he sounded back in the G1 cartoon. This narrator, not so much to me.

Seibertron wrote:Yay! Familiar looking Seekers in episode 2!

I spied Thundercracker, Skywarp, Sunstorm, and Hotlink (the purple one).

Sabrblade wrote:

o.supreme wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Are you sure about that narrator credit, though?

I have nothing to go on other than my ears at this point since there is nothing on any site that I have found. I checked to make sure Victor Caroli was still alive (he doesn't have a page on wiki, but does on voicechasers). If its not him...it's the best impersonation I've ever heard. I hope something definitive comes out soon confirming it.

I dunno, I feel like something like getting Victor Caroli back would be something that this show would want to be up front about like how they got Peter Cullen and Judd Nelson. The narrator didn't sound that much like Caroli to me, as when Jon Bailey got Caroli to narrate one of his BotCon filmfest videos a few years ago, Caroli sounded pretty much exactly the same in that video as he sounded back in the G1 cartoon. This narrator, not so much to me.

Seibertron wrote:Yay! Familiar looking Seekers in episode 2!

I spied Thundercracker, Skywarp, Sunstorm, and Hotlink (the purple one).

At first, I thought it sounded like Victor Caroli, but then I heard some Peter Cullen in there. Might it be Peter Cullen doing a Victor Caroli impersonation?

Well, it's better than Combiner Wars. The new voice talents flesh out the feel, and the writing feels slightly better, particularly with Perceptor (thank god Wheaton knows how to bring life to static dialogue). Yeah, the animation is meh, but it is WAY less choppy than CW was. For first impressions, I'd rate it 6/10.

Seibertron wrote:At first, I thought it sounded like Victor Caroli, but then I heard some Peter Cullen in there. Might it be Peter Cullen doing a Victor Caroli impersonation?

That... does sound plausible, now that you mention it.

Why did they fill Rodimus with self-doubt?! Drat! He hasn't been that way since G1, they should've left it there.

That said, Hot Rod seems cool again

And yeah Seibs, totally horrible audio.

Anyone else a little weirded out by Cybertron having mountainous rocky terrain?

Sabrblade wrote:Anyone else a little weirded out by Cybertron having mountainous rocky terrain?

It did, didn't it? Yeah, unless it's after the "reformat" and it hasn't been fully mechaformed. Maybe like Unicron is in most current media?

Sabrblade wrote:

Seibertron wrote:At first, I thought it sounded like Victor Caroli, but then I heard some Peter Cullen in there. Might it be Peter Cullen doing a Victor Caroli impersonation?

That... does sound plausible, now that you mention it.

I don't know...it sounds dead on to me. Even if you listen to someone like Peter Cullen, or James Earl Jones, their voice obviously changes a little over time.

I've listened to it several times. I agree it's odd that nothing was promoted, but if that narrator is not Victor Caroli , that IS the single best impression I've ever heard. I mean I've heard a ton of impersonations of original series voice actors, and a they are all just enough *off* to tell it's not them (Jon Bailey is a good Prime, but you could never fool me into thinking he was Peter Cullen...) .

Sabrblade wrote:Anyone else a little weirded out by Cybertron having mountainous rocky terrain?

It's seems to be orbiting a star as well since we have different sky lighting, even some almost daylight scenes. I just chalk it up to series writers not knowing there stuff, or being influenced by BM .

Official review postponed due to some technical issues. It's done, it just won't be coming out right now.

For all the non US citizens, here's both episodes to watch (& not broken into little bits)
https://m.vk.com/wall-56732771_14557


OK...just watched both episodes, cool, but just as I feared...Trypticon is just gonna stomp around in only his dinosaurer mode, whether we'll get to see his other modes is doubtful, but not impossible seeing as it's only 2 episodes in! Rodimus reverts back to his Hot Rod form just to go boy racing around, He'll no doubt revert back to Rodimus for Power Of The Primes, I know it's only 2 episodes in...but being Titans Return I didn't yet see any Titan Masters, cool that the Combiners have been given the task of finding Fort Max, although it's early to say if there'll be a Fort/Plex team up to take on Trypticon, one scene had Metroplex slowly making his way to Trypticon! didn't he(Plex) move quicker in the trailers I'm sure at one point he started running

& did anyone catch Windblade saying the word Optimal, maybe a nod of things to come(POTP)

These two episodes were... refreshingly not bad. Way better than CW's first ones. While not an advocate for "more is better", I think the long episode length helps improve the series. I do fear this series will run into Energon's issue of running out plot before running out of runtime. But we have a little while to go and this was a glimmer of hope. Especially when it feels like it's setting of PotP without throwing it in our faces.

Seibertron wrote:While I'd love Perceptor's voice to sound more like his G1 self, I actually don't mind this version of his voice.

I was pleasantly surprised by Wil Wheatons voice! I think he did a great job.

Writing has definitely improved.
Animation has definitely improved.
Not a big fan of the blink-and-you-miss-it transformations.

Overall, it's definitely a movement in the right direction.

Speaking of movements, and because I know StuartMaximus has been wanting to know, yes, my morning bowel movement was a good one this morning.

Well, the direction's alot better, and it's alot more enjoyable than Combiner Wars by quite a margin. But that framerate... and some of those voices, eesh.

& you didn't take a picture

next time take a picture when you have a movement

Burn wrote:my morning bowel movement was a good one this morning.

I always thought you talked $h1t!

oh &

I'm not yer mate! that's one thing that I'm dam sure of!

Since this Trypticon is being possessed by the one of the most hammy of Starscreams, I propose to the council we give this one the nickname Trytpticon Carne

Stuartmaximus wrote::shock: & you didn't take a picture

next time take a picture when you have a movement

Keep your fantasies to yourself mate.

watched the youtube version as like most of the planet ive no choice.

its not bad.

theyve learned alot of lessons from combiner wars.

its got better pacing thanks to the longer episodes, the frame rate is a hell of alot better and the general art style is gorgeous. the script/dialogue is still a bit naff but there was some genuinely good bits in here.

starscream in particular going a bit "rick" when he thought he was off to the afterlife. that had me cracking up - VERY reminiscent of his "transformers prime" take . but they handled the whole "city-speaker" thing very well with windblades expo dump from metroplex.

like others i couldnt catch a word of what rodimus was saying in the basiclla of the primes. one of the few times i wished that fecking youtube subtitles thing would actually work for once.

but all in all those two episodes were a good start.

And hey, computrons still alive so thats good.



as an aside got a laugh out of noticing the back of perceptors head is basically two red legs folded over. so ya just know titan masters are due to turn up eventually

One thing I find really odd.

"We need to find fighters". So ... that city Trypticon is stomping on is inhabited by a bunch of civilians? The war just ended, do they expect me to believe it's either empty (with the lights on) or populated with Cybertronians that don't know how to fight?

It's that time of the year, a special day of celebration and the gathering of friends and family! No, not Christmas. Not even Thanksgiving. It's time for a brand new Machinima Transformers animated series!



Yaaaaaay



While I don't hold the original Combiner Wars series in very high regard, I have (potentially blind) hope in it's sequel, Titans Return. Is it Good? Is it bad? Well, pull up a chair, slice some turkey, and pour yourself a tall glass of your strongest Energon, because we're about to dive into the first episode of Machinima's Transformers Titans Return.



("Spoilers" for Machinima's Combiner Wars Series below. If you missed out on that series, I slightly envy you, but I recommend going and reading my reviews for that series, despite some broken images.)



We open on a wide shot of Cybertron, with a general recap (which sounds like it’s potentially narrated by the original G1 cartoon narrator?) of the previous series to get us back up to speed. It briefly runs through the past 8 episodes, and does a good enough job of getting all the important info in there. We get reminded of the cliffhanger(?) In the last show, of Fortress Maximus' face, with a slightly ham-fisted "The Titans have returned" from Windblade overdubbed.





Roll credits! *ding*





After a slightly overly-fancy title logo sequence, we finally get to the new content.





Well, that's half the budget gone, right there.



It cuts to Starscream's mangled body on the side of a mountain. We actually spend a considerable amount of time with Starscream's ghost this episode, which is a nice call-back to the original cartoon. He's just realizing he perished in the previous battle, indicating that this is taking place very shortly after the end of the previous series, perhaps even the next morning.



We immediately get another title card, this time with the title of the episode, "Aftermath and Rebirth". That's right, "Rebirth". Pretty confident that's a bad omen.





Because with a name like "Rebirth", it has to be good.



We next see the Constructicons cleaning up Cybertron after the battle. We even see them individually (!), some even in robot mode (!!), and one even talks(!!!), which is a big deal in this series, as it couldn't make up it's mind last time around if it wanted the combiners to be made of individual robots, or just one large entity and even a seperate race from the rest of the characters.



They get some help from the other Combiners, with some awkward dialogue thrown in for good measure. We're then reintroduced to two of the main characters from the previous show, Optimus Prime and the Mistress of Flame. Optimus Prime is now voiced by Peter Cullen, the, uh, OP OP, shall we say.









We have to address the Mistress' performance here, because it's not great. Robotic, static, and near emotionless for most of her dialogue in this scene, it’s rather jarring throughout. Windblade chooses this moment to arrive, shocked that Optimus is leaving so soon.



Windblade seems to have a complete tonal shift from the previous series, being more of an indifferent young girl with little emotion here than her previous "I hate everything and everyone all the time" character. This, too, is an extremely jarring change, and it makes the dialogue slam to a halt, feeling clunky and badly timed from here on.





okayniceknowingyoubai



So, then, uh, Metroplex appears. Just out of the ground. Yeah. Like that, with very little ado. The city splits open and Metroplex climbs out, which is disappointing, as I think he should be the city itself. I feel like this would have made more of an impact anyway, with buildings starting to move and finally form into this giant robot.



She very quickly accepts Prime leaving without much convincing required, and departs with the most awkward line so far and a bizarre transformation sequence that completely feels like filler. Prime leaves, saying goodbye to the Mistress of Flame, and then driving away. He then comes back, sits there in truck mode for a couple beats too long, honks at her, and then drives away the opposite direction. This is the only part I laughed out loud at, just because the pacing is SO ridiculous.





Oh, uh, crap, I drove the wrong way. How do I turn around without making this awkward? Oh, I'll just honk at her then drive the opposite direction. There. Nailed it.



We see a quick cameo shot of Megatron, overlooking the previous characters, and then we move on.



Rodimus is dropped off at the home of the 13 Primes by one of Victorion's Helicopters (yay more individual combiner personalities!) to return the Matrix of leadership. Is it just me, or is nothing in this scene understandable? Judd Nelson's voice over in particular is so poorly mixed with the Music (which by itself is too loud), and the 13 Primes have this layered voice effect that makes it so you just can't understand anything any of them say. We get another filler transformation shot of Hot Rod after he's given back the matrix, and then we get the final scenes of Episode One:



While this was all happening, the Gods take Starscream to the hollowed out remains of Trypticon, who actually fills his city role, unlike Metroplex. The gods make Starscream embody the large titan, and give him new life. On a distant hill, Perceptor is meeting with Windblade. He's voiced by Wil Weaton and, uh, he has a large head.





Where else is he going to fit all that science?



He's in the middle of analyzing Starscream's remains, when they both see Trypticon forming in the distance. That's right, while sort of dumping most of their cards on the table, Trypticon makes a fully fledged appearance. With a mighty roar, he brings episode one of Titans Return to an end.



Woahh, slow it down, guys, it's only the first episode.





So, is it bad? I'd argue no. The extended length of the episodes (12 minutes instead of 6-7) makes for a much easier ride, but at the same time, you get some odd pacing issues and some filler shots. You can tell the producers weren't really sure what to do with the extra time in some areas.

The animation finally improves, on many fronts. In fact, the recap of the previous show at the beginning of this episode illustrates that perfectly. You get a taste of that jerky animation and those completely unsynched voice movements and you can see instantly how much better those are here. Over all it makes it so much more enjoyable when those factors aren't constantly annoying you. I'd honestly say the worst part of this is the voice acting, which does not bode well for the show as the VA was by far the best part about it's preceding series. At least, despite her wanting to kill everyone, Windblade had believable emotion and frustration in at least her voice. Here, like I said before, she seems indifferent to everything that's going on.



It just feels like three steps forward, and then a step back.



So that's my take on episode 1 of this new series. If you want to watch it for yourself, you can over on Go90. These reviews are going to be longer as the episodes themselves are almost double what they previously were. What did you think of the episode? What did you think of my review? Let me know down in the comments, and stick around for my review of Episode 2, which also premiered today. Some questions get answered, but even more are asked.

Thanks for reading, and keep your optics and audio sensors tuned to Seibertron.com!