We start with Windblade. She is floating in a Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows-style afterlife dream sequence. A voice wakes her. She realizes it belongs to metroplex. He tells her that the titans have been listening to her thoughts, and don't like the anger they've seen within them.
Fear leads to Anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.
She apologizes for what she's done, but the titans remind her of who she truely is. She wakes up again on cybertron, because death means nothing.
And then, and then!!As if being able to take down a Combiner with a swipe of her sword or stop a friggin' BLACK HOLE WITH HER TURBINES wasn't enough for her, Windblade gets to take complete control of Metroplex! Awesome potential there for a entertaining story, right? Well...
It's just his arm...That's it.
Yes, that's right. Metroplex's arm makes a surprise appearance for some reason.
Friggin' called it! Well, sorta
A quick note: Starscream's...well...screams are absolutely horrendous. Nearly unwatchable. They sound like some tormented demon baby.
Windblade smashes the titan's limb onto starscream, grabbing hold of him so Prime and Megatron can have a clear shot.
Now comes one of the top five moments in the series: Megatron turns into a gun. Yes, not only does this Megatron have a gun mode, but he's a triple changer. There's something for everyone to enjoy. I seriously, SERIOUSLY, love this Megatron.
Awesome!
Prime arms himself with Megatron, taking that one final shot at Starscream, destroying him.
Optimus checks on Windblade, and is surprised to learn she's still alive. Megatron approaches with the (somehow still intact) enigma of Combination. Seriously though, if an explosion of that caliber couldn't destroy it, I find it unlikely that anything Optimus or Megatron could do would. But then again, maybe Windblade can pull out another Dues Ex Machina magic power and destroy it single-handedly.
Megatron, Prime and Windblade have a quick conversation about what to do with the Enigma, and Megatron literally mentions how he's "more than meets the eye", as the entire audience participates in a collective eye roll.
Har har har
It's decided (by pretty much just Windblade) that the Enigma belongs to the combiners, and it's presented to Victorion. She does this weird chest-merge thing with it, sort of like the Matrix of Leadership, but more gross.
The council finally reappears for one last time, just long enough for Windblade to tell them that the Titan's have returned.
But then! Just when you thought it was over, we're teased with a shot of what is presumably Fort Max's head. Yep. Seriously.
Pfft. As if.
Well, I'm sure we'll be seeing that half a year after the Titan's Return toy line ends.
And that's it. That's the end. Of the whole thing. Some final, final thoughts:
I'd like to look at pros first before I get to my usual thoughts, because I feel that the good things about this series have been kind of trampled by the band wagon hate. I'd like to bring some of those good things to a greater light.
Pros:
The art style:
Although it does occasionally have its problems, the animation and art style are very visually pleasing, and have a great feel to them. The character models are new, but inspired, and suit each character well. I know it's very attractive to many fans to have toys that look like they just came off the screen, and vice versa. This delivers tenfold in that front. You almost couldn't get closer in some cases.
The color pallets used are very attractive, rich, and occasionally stunning.
Like this! I want this framed!
It's very beautiful sometimes, and is a highlight of the series. I wish it would have given us some more landscape shots, where this could have really shined.
Another positive would be most of the voice acting. Megatron, Starscream and Prime are done extreme justice here, and Rodimus and The Mistress of Flame are good most of the time, save for one or two lines here and there. I also don't mind the voice of Metroplex, Devastator, or Victorion. These are all well done, and, as I've said, did great with what they were given to work with.
Speaking of Megatron, I'm not exaggerating when I say that if this isn't one of my favorite incarnations of the character, it's by far the most interesting. I love every aspect of him. He's voiced perfectly, his personality is spot on, and his triple-changer ability satisfies the TankknotGuun camp and the GuunnotTankk camp, which, in my experience, is pretty damn near impossible. Boy, Machinima, you got a lot of things wrong but when you get something right you get it right!
Outstanding job. A+.
And that brings me to my thoughts. I don't hate this series. I don't. I just don't like it, either. The middle of the series was enjoyable, good, above par, even by standards set outside of the series. But the beginning was an absolute train wreck, and the ending was a textbook Dues Ex Machina situation. I feel that if it had just done a handful of things differently, it could have been unprecedentedly good. And hey, maybe if a Titan's Return series does happen, they'll take some of the criticism in stride and make it what I know it has the potential to be.
And that is it. All eight episodes, all eight weeks. I have to say that while the programme wasn't always enjoyable, these reviews were. I hope that you all had as much fun reading them as I had writing them. And while the Combiner Wars have indeed ended, who knows, maybe I'll review Another series some day. Thanks for reading my rants and rambles, it's been a ride, for sure, and a pleasure!
Wanna relive the journey? All of the episodes are available now for free on Go90 and Machinima's YouTube channel.
And, as always, thank you for keeping it tuned to seibertron.com, your best source for Transformers news (and reviews!) on the net!
so that it plays as just one episode, it's prob on Youtube by now....or something