Transformers Prime: Season One Blu-ray Review and 2 new promo videos

Transformers Prime: Season One's 1080p transfer isn't all that consistently pretty. Certainly, there are moments when the animation sparkles, but aside from its flatness, there are some technical bugaboos that drag it down considerably. First, the image is greatly hindered by what is oftentimes intense banding. Huge chunks of the image often suffer through terrible bouts, with entire backgrounds sometimes reduced to large masses of bands of poor color transitions. Unfortunately, many a line are jagged, and aliasing appears with some frequency, too. As noted, the animation is naturally flat and often looks to have a plastic-like texture to it. There's no real flow on anything but the Transformers themselves; human hair and clothes offer no real movement or textures. Such elements are very much flat and stiff, but that's inherent to the original elements, not a fault of the Blu-ray transfer. On the flip side, those Transformers can look quite good in close-ups; the digital artists have taken the time to create some fairly complex elements within eyes, faces, various exposed gears, and the like. Their metallic exteriors are scratched, dented, dirty, and generally well-abused, but that's mostly the extent of fine detailing. Colors, likewise, are very flat and lack much range outside of basic shades. The yellows, reds, greens, whites, and blues that make up the Autobots are bright but monochromatic. The Decepticons are a bit colder, favoring rather flat shades of purple and gray. It's all relatively simple, but it's that intense banding, frequent jaggies, and occasional aliasing that really hurt this one. The banding is nothing short of an eyesore, so audiences sensitive to that might want to rent before committing to a purchase.

Disc One:

Audio Commentaries: "Darkness Rising, Part 1": Executive Producer Jeff Kline, Hasbro Studios Developer Mike Vogel, Animation Producer Therese Trujillo, and Art Director David Hartman; "Darkness Rising, Part 2": Jeff Kline, Mike Vogel, Therese Trujillo, and David Hartman; "Darkness Rising: Part 3": Hasbro Studios Executive Director Brian Lenard, Actors Tania Gunadi and Ernie Hudson, and Art Director José Lopez; "Darkness Rising, Part 4": Brian Lenard, Tania Gunadi, Ernie Hudson, and José Lopez; "Darkness Rising, Part 5": Composer Brian Tyler; "Masters and Students": Production Manager Mathias Dougherty, Animatic Artist Meghan Burleson, and Production Assistants Nathan Johnson and Jacob Rivera; "Scrapheap": Production Manager Sonya Park, Production Coordinator Meredith Rogers, Production Assistant Kathy Cavanaugh, and Post Supervisor Austin Block.


Disc Two:

Audio Commentaries: "Convoy": Actor Peter Cullen, President of Hasbro Studios Steve Davis, and Producer Rafi Ruthchild; "Predatory": Director Todd Waterman and Actors Sumalee Montano and Josh Keaton.


Disc Three:

Audio Commentary: "Shadowzone": Supervising Director David Hartman, Actor Andy Pessoa, Editor Mike Miles, and Bumblebee.


Disc Four:

Audio Commentaries: "Stronger, Faster": Actor Jeffrey Combs, Writer Mairghread Scott, and Director Shaunt Nigoghossian; "One Shall Fall": Writers Joseph Kuhr and Nicole Dubuc, Director Vinton Heuck, and Character Designer/Prop Designer/Colorist Augusto Barranco; "One Shall Rise, Part 1": Nicole Dubuc, Jospeh Kuhr, Vinton Heuck, and Augusto Barranco; "One Shall Rise, Part 2": Supervising Producer/Head Writer Duane Capizzi, Staff Writer Marsha Griffin, Supervising Color Designer Christophe Vacher, and Background Design Supervisor Vince Toyama; "One Shall Rise, Part 3": Duane Capizi, Staff Writer Steven Melching, Christophe Vacher, and Vince Toyama.
Making-Of Transformers: Prime (1080p, 11:02): An all-too-brief look at the creation of the show, beginning with a look back at the older franchises and moving on to examine the presentation for a new generation, the voice acting, the Transformer cast, the human characters, and the animation.
Toy Featurette (1080p, 16:31): A look at continuing with Transformers lore, creating new characters, characters who didn't make the cut, toy design, and the characters the crew would like to see in the show.
Season 2 Teaser (1080p, 0:20).