Okay, I'm being overdramatic, because this series on the whole is still leagues better than any Transformer content we've gotten out of Machinima previously. It's when you start breaking it down and looking into the individual episodes when things start to fall apart. Let's do exactly that with the new installment, Episode 8: In Good Hands!
This Episode of Titans Return sponsored by Allstate
We again find Super Combiner Victorion fighting Trypticon, and it's very Sentai/Classic Mecha inspired, and it's actually pretty cool. The one thing that detracts from this is Victorion's grunts. There's little variation to them, so they end up sounding like a video game character they only recorded one "Pain" sound for. It gets grating and annoying, but the scene changes fast enough so it doesn't get too much. That's really a nitpick, though, on an otherwise fun scene.
AGH. AGH. AGH. AGH. AGH. AGH. AGH.
We cut back to Windblade and Fortress Maximus, who are both floating through the sky in a truly Studio Ghibli fashion. They analyse the situation before they arrive, and again it's a very nice scene. Michael Dorn is great as Fort Max, and even with his robotic lines, he packs in a lot of emotion. Some of Windblade's lines here are feel a bit disconnected from the scene, but, like I said a couple reviews ago, it's obvious that not all of these actors recorded at the same time, which makes it hard to match the emotion of a scene and make a conversation sound natural.
At the same time, the Chorus of Banes from the Dark Knight Rises-Sorry, the Chorus of Primes talks to Optimus about the threats currently gripping the city, and he decides to join the fight. The Combiners split from their super-combiner mode, and decide to attack Trypticon individually. There's some scale discrepancies here, but it's not that big of a deal.
Energon Mains UNDER the city? They seem to be pretty on the surface to me, hence why your friend just fell in one.
Victorion finds some random energon shard (??) and decides to hurl it at Trypticon to make him fall into an Energon main behind him. Again, we get a weirdly long establishing shot to get across this idea. The shot lasts 9 seconds, when it could have easily been done in 3 and still have done it's job.
It's the Cybertronian Olympics! All the way from Caminus comes Victorion, competing for the Gold in Javelin!
The lack of visible damage in this show is really bothering me, as well. Prime is just wailing on Trypticon's neck with his axe, and it's clearly hurting him, as Trypticon recoils and gets angry while he's doing it, but there's no visible damage or wear from the attacks. This is the same case as Metroplex back in the beginning of this show. He was apparently so damaged he couldn't continue to fight, but we didn't see any damage until his entire arm got blown off.
Does about the same amount of damage as the actual toys would do to each other.
Victorion throws her spear at Trypticon but - shock! - she misses, instead hitting the Energon line behind him, causing a huge explosion, engulfing everyone around it. I would have loved to have been in the Metroplex City Planning meeting where they just decided to put extremely volatile rivers that explode at the slightest touch flowing through the middle of the city.
Trypticon actually transforms into base mode, and starts using his defense systems to hold his attackers back. He fires directly at Optimus, launching him across the city. Just as he's about to crash into the street, Fort Max comes down from the heavens to save him at the last second. Not sure how that landing was any softer, considering Fort Max is also made out of metal, just like the ground, but what are you going to do? Windblade comes to him and tells him to relax, because he's "In good hands".
Roll cred-Hey! they actually did!
Overall, I think this episode is a solid "Okay". I mean, it's certainly not as laughably bad as the previous couple of episodes, but that's a pretty low bar. It is very nice to look at, though. I think they nailed the character models and set pieces. Surprisingly, the art style and animation are quickly becoming my favorite part about this series, when they were one of my biggest issues in Combiner Wars. The subtle improvements they made really did make a difference. Like I said in the previous review, the colors are really aesthetically pleasing, too. Most of the voice acting's okay, at least, if not better. Peter Cullen and Michael Dorn are particular highlights. It just feels like there's no weight to anything that's happening. No consequence. Maybe that's because of that damage issue I touched on above; no one is shown to physically get injured through all of these battles, so there doesn't feel like there's any desperate issues, even though there's a giant robot dinosaur attacking the city.
It'll be interesting to see how all of this wraps up in the coming weeks. Thanks for tuning in once again, and please keep the discussion going in the energon pub forums below. Do you agree? Do you disagree? Please tell me why. See you next week!
