Machinima Transformers Titans Return Episode 6 REVIEW

I think no matter how improved this series is from Combiner Wars it’s still just gonna get sh$& on by people.

I liked it. It felt like the start of act 2 with some action and set up to further the plot.


I had a friend come over this weekend and we watched Combiner Wars which we agreed wasn’t great and we binged Titans Return and he loved it. He’s a casual fan. He doesn’t live in tf sites, keep up to date on everything and only collects stuff that appeals to him. He didn’t even know a new cartoon was happening outside of RID. He enjoyed it. Said it’s fun.

I'm not watching any of this!

Just waiting for Geewun Redone's sequel.


And if that doesn't happen then neither did this 2nd season...

Point proven

Randomhero wrote:I think no matter how improved this series is from Combiner Wars it’s still just gonna get sh$& on by people.

Because people suddenly can't dislike things?

Honestly dude, you've been on this site long enough to know better!

This episode was ... ahhh why bother with it? A lot of it made no sense. Especially Victorions desire to avenge Mistress of Flame, completely disregarding THE IMPENDING THREAT THAT IS TRYPTICON! You know, the impending threat THAT YOU WERE JUST TRYING TO STOP.

ugh ... this is bad fan wank.

I'm just going to say, everything about and with Megatron is the best thing about both series. I could watch a show just about him and I've fallen in love with this new voice actor and his take on him.

Randomhero wrote:I think no matter how improved this series is from Combiner Wars it’s still just gonna get sh$& on by people.

I liked it. It felt like the start of act 2 with some action and set up to further the plot.


I had a friend come over this weekend and we watched Combiner Wars which we agreed wasn’t great and we binged Titans Return and he loved it. He’s a casual fan. He doesn’t live in tf sites, keep up to date on everything and only collects stuff that appeals to him. He didn’t even know a new cartoon was happening outside of RID. He enjoyed it. Said it’s fun.

Nits gonna pick.

I can only complain so much about something I'm ultimately watching for free and know that over all is helping the franchise with notoriety and toy sales. So, more power to them. But then I've never been one who complained that much about any of the TF series. They are what they are. Could it be better? Sure, but not everything is TMNT, Voltron Legendary Defender, or the Legend of Kora.

How does it help toy sales though when the toy line is virtually finished?

Is there such a thing as an antithesis to "beating a dead horse"? Cuz saying how Megatron is the best thing about this show is pretty much that. We all know that he's great, that he's the one really good thing to come out of this show and its predecessor, but honestly that still doesn't speak much about the whole show itself since pretty much everything else that isn't Megatron (or, debatably, Foghorn Overlord), is still some degree of mediocre.

Sure, Titans Return isn't as mind-bogglingly bad as Combiner Wars turned out to be, but that's like saying how Suicide Squad wasn't as appallingly bad as Batman v. Superman was even though SS itself still wasn't that good in its own right.

Megatron is to CW and TR like what Wonder Woman (the character) was to BvS: One shining spot in sea of mediocrity (or more specifically in TR's case, a sea of indifferent, shrugworthy quality).

Ebonyleopard wrote:

Randomhero wrote:I think no matter how improved this series is from Combiner Wars it’s still just gonna get sh$& on by people.

I liked it. It felt like the start of act 2 with some action and set up to further the plot.


I had a friend come over this weekend and we watched Combiner Wars which we agreed wasn’t great and we binged Titans Return and he loved it. He’s a casual fan. He doesn’t live in tf sites, keep up to date on everything and only collects stuff that appeals to him. He didn’t even know a new cartoon was happening outside of RID. He enjoyed it. Said it’s fun.

Nits gonna pick.

I can only complain so much about something I'm ultimately watching for free and know that over all is helping the franchise with notoriety and toy sales. So, more power to them. But then I've never been one who complained that much about any of the TF series. They are what they are. Could it be better? Sure, but not everything is TMNT, Voltron Legendary Defender, or the Legend of Kora.

Helping the franchise with toy sales? Titans Return as a toyline is over. Sure, there are still some Wave 6 figures still hanging out on shelves, but of them, only Hot Rod is in the series. Overlord barely showed up at retail, and Wave 5 (with Windblade) had such spotty distribution that the easiest way to get it was to order online.

Much like the Combiner Wars cartoon before it, Titans Return is showing up after the toyline has effectively ended at retail. Which means the Power of the Primes cartoon should be showing up sometime in 2019.

To the review at hand......I don't even want to watch this episode. Just reading the summary made me cringe so bad that I don't want to subject myself to it. (Megatron picking up and tossing DEVASTATOR??)

Bounti76 wrote:To the review at hand......I don't even want to watch this episode. Just reading the summary made me cringe so bad that I don't want to subject myself to it. (Megatron picking up and tossing DEVASTATOR??)

Yeah that was.... a thing.


Also the combiners seem to actually be in scale with regular transformers in this episode, which ironically makes them seem small. Megatron easily comes up to Menasor's waist, much like the CW leader figure to the CW Menasor toy. Instead of being "enlarged" when they combine like in most fiction, the combiners are presented as about the sum of their parts.

Randomhero wrote:I think no matter how improved this series is from Combiner Wars it’s still just gonna get sh$& on by people.

Too bad I haven't heard much on actual improvement....

IDW's early ongoing books were proof that Hasbro can do wonders with TF lore if put in the hands of someone who gives a shirt. Instead they gave us more Bay crap and now a 2nd season of this!

Then they wonder why Marvel's movies and DC animated direct to video films are running circles around then these days!

It's pathetic!

And FYI the time spent watching last season was in no ways what I'd call "free".

King Kuuga wrote:

Bounti76 wrote:To the review at hand......I don't even want to watch this episode. Just reading the summary made me cringe so bad that I don't want to subject myself to it. (Megatron picking up and tossing DEVASTATOR??)

Yeah that was.... a thing.

Megatron throwing Devastator.PNG

YES.
I wanted to talk about this in the review, but I was already up to 5-6 paragraphs not even half way through the episode, so I cut it. So ridiculous, though.

I'm actually enjoying this show. I laugh at it all the time, even if you're not meant too. It's just so bad it's hilarious to watch.

You could turn on subtitles so you could understand the Chorus of the Primes.

Overall I am enjoying the series though much as I like Megatron, he's not as much fun in this.

I am enjoying Judd Nelson back as Hot Rod though I wish they'd get rid of the stupid face plate.

Menasor's voice is the most annoying thing I've heard since Energon Ironhide and Beast Wars Rattrap. He's always been my favourite Con Combiner and ignored for years by the franchise. We finally get him in the spotlight and they give him that awful voice.

What was the casting director thinking? Starscream and Overlord aren't great but no where near as bad as Menasor.

I will admit Combiner Wars is a guilty pleasure of mine.

Every Transformer series is flawed. After 30 years, I've learned to focus on the positives of each.

i dont get the problem with menasors voice. its not like he says that much anyway and ive heard ALOT worse in this franchises past. i suppose we should be happy hes not portrayed as a psychotic mess like his profile is meant to be. at least this way he's contributing.

the one voice ive a prob with is computron TBH. I keep missing half what he says. he's not chorus of primes bad, but not far off it.

oddly no prob with megs tossing devastator as he IS meant to be a badass. so as long as it something only he or a prime/grimlock type can do im ok with it.

TBH ive MORE of a problem that he doesnt seem to remember his ex leader. leastways you'd get no idea from how they interact. there should be at least some form if "oh its the old boss" reaction or something . hell in this continuity alone the individual constructicons used to hang out with him FFS as we saw in the arena fights in Combiner Wars. so there really should be more of a loyality/conflict there from the big dev.

We now have some more behind-the-scenes content regarding Machinima's Titans Return series, thanks to a new video posted over on the Transformers official Facebook page! The video features former Power Rangers Star Jason David Frank, who talks about his role as Emissary in the new show. The Green Power Ranger talks about what aspects of Emissary's character he likes the most, how he has a lot of personality for such a small bot, and more!

Find the full video down below, and continue the discussion in the Energon Pub forums! Remember to keep your optics and audio sensors tuned to Seibertron.com for all the latest Transformers news!

Devastator is a bit small in that scale slide isn't he?

padfoo wrote::?: Devastator is a bit small in that scale slide isn't he?

Well we don't really know how any of them stack up to Metroplex but in this show, Devy is about the same size as the other combiners, roughly twice as tall as Megatron, and let's assume Overlord is roughly the same size as Megatron too. So Devy is scaled right, and the giant Victorion is the combiner of combiners they all formed in this last episode.

Here is episode 7 - https://www.go90.com/videos/37rr2B0WBM6

Titled "Run For Our Lives"

That does not bode well.

Oh man, where do I even begin with this episode?

I must confess, that when the super-combiner Victorion appeared in front of Trypticon at this episode's start, I got the faintest, briefest, tiniest bit of excited that the obviously forthcoming fight between Vicky and Tryppy might possibly be something like the fight between Optimus Supreme and Unicron in the Energon cartoon, which was arguably the best and coolest part of that show. But, alas, what we got instead not only quick to kill any and all traces of that hint of excitement in me, but also served to illustrate the notion that Victorion in this episode is, both figuratively and literally, the biggest idiot this side of the known galaxy. And considering that her opponent right next to her was Trypticon of all people, that's saying something.

And it didn't hit me until after the previous episode came and went, but last episode's having Optimus get the Matrix back could have been the perfect opportunity for this episode to advertise one more toy in the Titans Return toyline (even if it would be so late in the game at this point) by having Optimus upgrade into his Leader class Powermaster Optimus Prime toy body. Once again, this episode missed the mark on that by having Optimus keep his normal look (Guess it would have been too expensive to create a whole new Optimus CG model on top of the one they already had carried over from Combiner Wars).

The whole thing with Windblade and Emissary was just ridiculous. He keeps yelling at her to "DISENGAGE!", yet he's the one who's at the controls. He's the one who should have the power to free her. She's bound up by stuff that he set in motion last episode. She can't free herself, Emissary. It's all your doing!

And once again, we're only fed table scraps of what it means to be a Cityspeaker in this show, as though it's already expected of the audience to fully understand what that term means, not accounting for the very real possibility that there may be a good portion of this show's audience that hasn't read/doesn't read the IDW comics (and based on evidence I've seen from others' reactions, that is very true).

And when Optimus gave the Matrix to Perceptor to keep safe, when he was thinking that Optimus was trying to pass it onto him, did anyone else immediately think "Oh great, he's passing the Matrix onto Wesley Crusher! "?

And was anyone else really disappointed that Fort Max was formed, head and all, without Emissary needing to first attach himself to Cerebros, as though Emissary may be treated as a fully separate entity from Fort Max in this show?

At the very least, Michael Dorn sounded... "adequate" as Fort Max (honestly, anyone with a deep voice could play this role decently enough with this quality of writing/directing).

Sabrblade wrote:the obviously forthcoming fight... might possibly be something like the fight between Optimus Supreme and Unicron in the Energon cartoon, which was arguably the best and coolest part of that show.

Agreed on both the assessment of TF Energon & the anticipation of this fight...and its huge letdown.

This is an episode that could have been easily 5 minuets long but is padded quite a bit. Didn't need to see the interior of Windblades cockpit for 20 seconds or whatever it was... also does anyone know what Trypscream said to giant Victorion...? something about power?

Also, the lack of transition from Emissary, to Cerebros, to become Fort Max's head was a letdown. Well 3 episodes of this left to go...I'm guessing we might not see what happens to Rodimus until the very end, as the set up for the next series.

o.supreme wrote:also does anyone know what Trypscream said to giant Victorion...? something about power?

There are closed captions to turn on.

o.supreme wrote:Also, the lack of transition from Emissary, to Cerebros, to become Fort Max's head was a letdown.

To be a little fairer, after I made my post about that, it was pointed out to me that what we saw was still admittedly toy-accurate, since Emissary actually isn't needed to be attached to Cerebros to form Fort Max's robot mode, head and all.

Still, Fort Max operating without Emissary at all kinda diminishes Emissary's whole point of being a key part of Fort Max in the first place.

Sabrblade wrote:

o.supreme wrote:also does anyone know what Trypscream said to giant Victorion...? something about power?

There are closed captions to turn on.

I watched a ripped copy on Youtube that doesn't have CC, Ill have to wait until I get home from work to watch on go90 I guess...


Also I know Emissary doesn't "have to" be part of Fort Max in robot mode to be toy accurate. But in fiction, it isn't exactly explained the relationship between the 3. I always have Emissary in the compartment below the head in my Fort Max when in Robot mode. That way I know he will not get lost

o.supreme wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

o.supreme wrote:also does anyone know what Trypscream said to giant Victorion...? something about power?

There are closed captions to turn on.

I watched a ripped copy on Youtube that doesn't have CC, Ill have to wait until I get home form work to watch on go90

I'll take a quick peek for ya.

Scary rumbling voice: "Victorion..."
Starscream voice straining in pain: "...It is too powerful for you to defeat."


Also, so much for the closed captions being helpful. What was obviously spoken as "Victorion..." was captioned as "Then come on..."

thanks. I found the same to be on Youtube, either the English is bad, or they don't offer it at all, just in Spanish. Might as well be watching one of those cheaply produced anime dvd's made in china with horribly translated English subs.

Episode's on KimCartoon now - http://kimcartoon.me/Cartoon/Transformers-Titans-Return/Episode-7

So, we've finally reached the seventh episode of Machinima's Titans Return animated series. Last week was miles away from the best episode we've gotten thus far, so does this week's fare any better? Let's find out and dive deep into Episode 8 of Titans Return.

Before we get into the episode we're greeted with a title card that presents the name of this episode.

You heard it. We really should.

After that we get a 30 second long establishing shot of the Basilica shooting its laser at Trypticon. 30 seconds for a shot like this wouldn't be awful, except the whole episode is only around 11 minutes long. Take out the intro and title card, you get closer to 10. On top of that, the shot is of something we already know is happening, thanks to it being established in the last episode. This could have easily been cut to half the time at least.

Anyway, moving on. The reason we have this big of an establishing shot is because we're just in time for the arrival of Victorion (or, the super combiner version of her), and the following string of sequences completely baffles me. So first, Victorion materializes right in front of Trypticon, with the basilica's laser passing right over her head. She randomly calls for Overlord, even though there's nothing saying he's even remotely close to her, and somehow doesn't notice the giant robot dinosaur behind her, or the giant laser beam firing at it, and gets launched across the city by Trypticon's fire breath. I didn't think is was possible to get ambushed by a 150-story kaiju, but here we are.

He's right behind me, isn't he.

To add some sort of insult to injury, she then comes back with the line that they "almost forgot about" Trypticon. What?! You almost forgot about Trypticon rampaging through the city?! Sure. I don't know if this is just a poorly-executed taunt, but the line isn't delivered that way. It's just confusing. In fact, on my first watch, I couldn't believe this was actually the plot they chose to go with. I'm still in total disbelief.

Victorion then tries to fight Trypticon, taking a huge swing with her sword, slicing through a building, just to find Trypticon casually walking to the complete other side of her. Seriously, in one shot he's directly in front of her, and then in the next he's just waltzing around on her left.


What the f*** is HAPPENING?!?

Also, I'm completely glossing over the fact that somehow a combiner made of combiners just looks like a giant Victorion, because we have bigger fish to fry.

She's just a cosmic girl, from another galaxy...

Moving on from the Victorion fight for a moment, we also have Windblade still strapped up to Fort Max. Something is obviously going wrong, as Emissary tries to talk to her, and keeps telling her to disconnect from the system. It doesn't make a lot of sense, as he's the one at the freakin' controls! Seems like he'd be more in a position to help her disconnect. Meanwhile, on the outside she seems to be in pain, she is actually making contact with the titan city. In the brief discussion, he asks, very appropriately, why he should trust her. Why she wouldn't at least mention that Emissary sent her is beyond me, but she apparently convinces him anyway.

We interrupt Titans Return to bring you "Contact"

A very sudden transition cut later, we return to the Chorus of Prime's chamber, where Optimus decides to hand the Matrix of leadership over to Perceptor for safe keeping, as he believes that's what Trypticon is there for. He tells Perceptor to just run, and takes him to the outskirts of the city. He accepts, and promises he won't let Prime and Cybertron down.

"That day, for no particular reason, I decided to go for a little run. So I ran to the end of the road. And when I got there, I thought maybe I'd run to the end of Metroplex City. And when I got there, I thought maybe I'd just run across all of Cybertron."

Back with Windblade and Emissary, the ground starts shaking, and they realize their attempts have worked, and Fort Max is finally waking up again. She transforms and they take off. Fort Max finishes his transformation as well, and they take off, headed to stop Trypticon.

He'll save Windblade in a second, first Emissary needs to do his daily aerobics workout.

This episode severely dipped into "So bad it's good" territory. Like, at least I enjoyed myself watching it. I laughed more at the ridiculousness of the entire thing then I have the entire past two shows. I do have to say, though, I'm really enjoying the color palette they chose for this show. The mix of glowing purples, oranges, and then the bright neon blue is very ascetically pleasing. They really did capture that 80's feel.

If you slowed these episodes down and replaced the audio with some Vaporwave, it would work 100 times better.

I look forward to seeing Trypticon and Fort Max fight, as it seems the Titan V Titan fighting is when this series is at it's best, at least in the earlier episodes.

As the next episode won't be out until just after Christmas, happy holidays to all of you, and thanks for reading! Please share your thoughts on the episode down below, and your thoughts on the review/my opinion. Do you agree? Do you disagree? Let me know! See you next week!

Bronzewolf wrote:So, we've finally reached the eighth episode of Machinima's Titans Return animated series.

I know you really want the pain to end, we all do, It's only episode 7 though...

Bronzewolf wrote:
He'll save Windblade in a second, first Emissary needs to do his daily aerobics workout.

Thanks Bronzewolf. I was hoping you'd get this shot. DJ- M IZ HARRY in the house y'all !!!!!

Okay, to be a little fair to Giant Victorion's singleminded calling for Overlord when she first appears, she did come to the city to seek him out specifically, so as to avenge the death of the Mistress of Flame. It's just that her singlemindedness blinding her to virtually everything else happening around her in that moment was what was so baffling.

Also, almost the entirety of Fort Max's transformation was done offscreen. Not even his head attaching to his body (his main toy gimmick!) was shown.

o.supreme wrote:

Bronzewolf wrote:So, we've finally reached the eighth episode of Machinima's Titans Return animated series.

I know you really want the pain to end, we all do, It's only episode 7 though...

Bronzewolf wrote:
He'll save Windblade in a second, first Emissary needs to do his daily aerobics workout.

Thanks Bronzewolf. I was hoping you'd get this shot. DJ- M IZ HARRY in the house y'all !!!!!

Oh Damn it! Star Wars on the brain. Fixed. Thanks! (And yes, I also wanted to make a DJ reference, but I did that a couple reviews ago with Perceptor.)

Bronzewolf wrote:If you slowed these episodes down and replaced the audio with some Vaporwave, it would work 100 times better.

I would love if someone did some creative video editing and made like a 15-hour loop of vaporwave to Machinima Tramsformers... maybe just DJ Emissary.

Have they even shown any Titan Masters transforming with their Autobot? I started watching, but kinda got bored. All I want to see at this point is how they handle the transformation.

CobraKai wrote:Have they even shown any Titan Masters transforming with their Autobot? I started watching, but kinda got bored. All I want to see at this point is how they handle the transformation.

A titan master has yet to transform in this series. And Emissary is the only titan master who has appeared

Transformation in general is handled pretty poorly, probably because of the low frame rate. I think the only ones that Transformed in CW were Optimus, Megatron (2 different modes wow...), Windblade (& Maxima that was the same model...), Starscream...that's about it.

No combiner components were shown other than 3 separate constructicons in CW and one of the helicopters from Victorion in TR. No combination sequences. No scenes of Titans actually transforming, they just kind of *rise up*. The transformations are not that complex either, not sure if anyone slowed them down frame-by-frame but I'm pretty sure a lot is skipped over.

Also it's pretty obvious Perceptor & Overlord have TM's as heads, but the rest of the cast do not, despite them having toys in the TR toyline. (Except Mistress of flame who is obviously an anomaly and Im pretty sure there isn't even an animation model for an alt mode for her) I guess it would have been a pain, and too much explaining to do if they all suddenly had TM heads . They would have had to come up with an actual long-form story.

I figure at some point Emissary will give Fort Max a power up much like he did the other Titans, but I doubt we will see Cerebros.

Also, while It's nice to see Overlord in semi-animated form. If it does turn out that his bad touch turns Hot Rod into Rodimus Unicronus as a tease for POTP, wouldn't it have been better for him to be The Fallen? or...maybe even Sentinel Prime? Somebody evil that has a connection to the Prime's or Unicron?

CobraKai wrote:Have they even shown any Titan Masters transforming with their Autobot? I started watching, but kinda got bored. All I want to see at this point is how they handle the transformation.

Machinima? Showing the main gimmick of the toyline that their Transformers cartoons are meant to advertise? Sure you jest.

^ so should we expect in PotP to see Titan Masters running around everywhere , or making a futile attempt to attack whatever the big bad of that series will be.

If Emissary isn't the head of Cerebros and therefore Fort Max, why does he have Cerebros's face on his back? And why does Perceptor have titan master legs on his head when he's not shown to have a headmaster/Titan master unit? God damn it Machinima.

And yes, Super Victorion (for lack of a better name) teleporting right in front of Trypticon and then completely ignoring him is utterly baffling.

This season started off with potential! Bring it back!

The new Titans Return Animated Series by Machinima has been available for viewing on Go90 for people in the US. It's long been a talking point on both this series and it’s predecessor, Combiner Wars, how inaccessible the episodes are if you're outside the US. Well, for international fans of the show, we might have some good news. Go90 has thrown the first episode of the new series up on their Go90Saga YouTube channel. It will be interesting to see if the rest of the episodes are also released there, or if it will continue to be primarily on Go90. You can watch the video below, and then read our Seibertron.com review of this episode here!

Good news everyone. The 'vanilla' Titans Returns has been dragging it's feet so long that the trailer for the Geewun Rone version is already up

I may have said it before but the voice acting in this is really great. I think Starscream's voice actor is also really well done, sounds really close to his G1 voice. It rivals TFP Starscream's voice for being my favorite.

The YouTube video is not for EVERYONE outside the US, but only for selected countries. It's blocked in Japan, for example.

Come on, Seibertron, we had this discussion during the Combiner Wars videos.

Episode 8 - https://www.go90.com/videos/3mScbYBjij0

Well, that episode was a whole lot of nothing.

Sabrblade wrote:Well, that episode was a whole lot of nothing.

Whoah now hold on.

Don't go talking it up like that, you'll get peoples hopes up!

I mean sure, there was a lot of punching and shooting at Trypticon, and Trypticon stomping and shooting at everyone, and then there were Combiners who, like previous episodes, had more screen time than the entire series dedicated to them.

And then there's the whole Fortress Maximus being really big, but incredibly slow to fly.

Oh and that one time when Optimus thought he was back in the 86 movie.

But yeah, another drawn out episode that didn't really do much at all.

And for those outside the US, have a present.

Let's look for the positives. The action sequences were nice. We saw Trypticon's base mode. Victorion's acting is decent. We got an allusion that combiners are, actually, combined robots and not just monolithic units.

Negatives: "Beware the power of the Primes." "What?" "............"
Fort Max is slow
Still no Cerebros
Giant Robot Hands Save Lives (maybe not applicable since he might have survived impact with the ground, and it was the impaling he avoided)
Menasor's voice
More combiner warring than in all of Combiner Wars (kind of a positive except for the title relevancy)
The destruction is supposedly catastrophic. Sure would be nice if we could get some perspective on that damage.

Sabrblade wrote:Well, that episode was a whole lot of nothing.

For weeks and weeks we've both posted our thoughts on each episode, as have several others. I don't know if it was the long weekend or what, but after watching this episode, and before seeing your comment I was going to just post a comment myself, but you beat me too it.

I know Bronzewolf puts a lot of effort into reviewing these episodes for the site, but honestly, I wouldn't blame him if he just took a week off, and skipped to next weeks episode

I mean, last episode was a whole lot of nonsense, and with "nonsense" there's at least a craziness or insanity to it. While "nothing" is just... boring.

Burn wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Well, that episode was a whole lot of nothing.

Whoah now hold on.

Don't go talking it up like that, you'll get peoples hopes up!

I mean sure, there was a lot of punching and shooting at Trypticon, and Trypticon stomping and shooting at everyone, and then there were Combiners who, like previous episodes, had more screen time than the entire series dedicated to them.

And then there's the whole Fortress Maximus being really big, but incredibly slow to fly.

Oh and that one time when Optimus thought he was back in the 86 movie.

But yeah, another drawn out episode that didn't really do much at all.

And for those outside the US, have a present.

Cheers. They link actually works for me in Japan (unlike the YouTube links).

When is the PROPER, "Geewun Reedun" version going to be out, though?