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Transformers: Prime - Season 1

Greylock Crescent

Greylock Crescent

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There is a new Transformers animated series, called Transformers: Prime on the recently launched channel called The Hub (in the US). According to the official site, the series is scheduled to premiere on Monday, November 29. However, last night, The Hub aired the first two episodes (of the five-part premiere miniseries). The results are, actually, pretty good.

The style and storytelling aren't as sophisticated as Star Wars: The Clone Wars, but for a Transformers cartoon, it comes off pretty well. The design borrows heavily from the feature films. But the strength of the series (thus far) is in its voice work.

Peter Cullen is back as Optimus Prime, and Frank Welker returns as Megatron. But the first two episodes belong to Ratchet, voiced by Jeffrey (aka Weyoun/Blunt of DS9 fame) Combs. Toss in voice work from Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Ernie (Ghostbusters) Hudson, and Adam (Jayne Cobb, Firefly) Baldwin and you've got the makings of a solid cast.

I've reviewed episodes 1 and 2, and even made a few low-res screencaps. Check out the premiere on Monday. I thought it was very entertaining. And I'm looking forward to the rest of the series.
 
I'm kind of curious-as Transformers is mainly a franchise based on merchandise, where the merchandise is for this? There's currently the Generations line which is mainly redoing the Generation Is and featuring some "Expanded" transformers, and the other animated line just ended. Plus there's obviously going to be Dark Of The Moon stuff around May or so. Yet nothing for Prime save a few books has surfaced yet to my knowledge. Although Optimus, Megatron and Bumblebee are very much like the Bayformers designs, there are others such as Ratchet that look quite different.
Also, is this in the same continuity as War for Cybertron?
 
I'm not sure where the continuity for this new show fits in. It certainly isn't in the G1-Beast Wars-Beast Machines era. And it doesn't appear to be in the same continuity as the films, either. For all intents and purposes, this could be a whole new continuity. That said, I haven't watched any of the Transformers shows or read any print material post-Beast Machines.
 
Well Bumblebee looks like from the movies...slightly. Is Jetfire in this? ( I looked at the site...seem like a limited cast starting out...no Jetfire. :( )
 
No Jetfire, at least initially. From wikipedia:

Autobots


  • Optimus Prime: Leader of the Autobots. Transforms into a red semi-trailer truck. It was also shown in the "Introducing The Hub" commercial that Optimus Prime has a mouth feature, like in Transformers Animated and the live action films, but Prime can also access a mouth plate feature as seen in most of the pictures, on the internet.
  • Arcee: A female Autobot. Transforms into a blue motorcycle. Arcee is the smallest and most agile of the Autobot team. Acts as vice commander of the team.
  • Bumblebee: Transforms into a camaro similar to the live action movie except with an engine block in the hood. As in the live action movies, Bumblebee communicates through electronic sound effects rather than specific human languages.
  • Ratchet: Team medic. Transforms into a hybrid medical truck.
  • Bulkhead: Transforms into a giant green ATV.
  • Cliffjumper: Transforms into a red Dodge Challenger.
Decepticons


  • Megatron: Leader of the Decepticons, transforms into a Cybertronian jet. He believes that Earth-style forms are beneath him and is just as big as Optimus Prime.
  • Starscream: Transforms into a silver gray a F-16 Fighting Falcon-like fighter. He is colored silver instead of the frequently used red and blue. Starscream shows respect for his commander, but waits for a chance to kill Megatron and take over leadership of the Decepticons.
  • Soundwave: Transforms into a blue MQ-9 Reaper-type aircraft. His arms become the wings, resulting in them becoming very thin. According to his bio, he can use "deployers" that come out from his chest along with mechanical tentacles.
  • Breakdown: Bulky and blue. Just as strong as Bulkhead
  • Knockout:
  • Eradicons: Troops (also known as drones) who serve as foot soldiers for the Decepticons. They transform into purple muscle cars.
  • Terrorcons:
  • Unicron[2]: This is where the Dark Energon, Megatron uses, eminates from. It is said that Dark Energon can revive the dead.
Humans


  • Jackson "Jack" Darby: a 16 year old boy who accidentally encounters Arcee in her motorcycle form and enters into the Transformer War as a strong ally.
  • Miko Nakadai: Miko's last name is Nakadai, but at Comic Con 2010, it said that Miko's last name was Tezuka. 15 year old female Japanese exchange student who seeks to be "in on the action" after seeing Arcee. Later shows mechnical aptitude.
  • Rafael "Raf" Esquivel: A very young computer whiz who is able to provide Ratchet the technical support for human technical devices that Ratchet cannot develop.
  • Special Agent Fowler: The Autobots' liaison to the outside world who only visits when there are "issues".
  • June Darby: Jack's mother.
 
Samuel Walters said:
. And it doesn't appear to be in the same continuity as the films, either. For all intents and purposes, this could be a whole new continuity.
Click to expand...
Which would be odd, since Orci and Kutzman are listed as having developed the series.

I was liking it right up until Megatron showed up,,,it was nice seeing Starscream in charge, and I wondered how different things would be if he were in charge...But ol big M had to show up. :rolleyes:
Combs rules as always. You can never go wrong with him in your cast. Despite my being tired of Megatron, I liked the first hour. Will be checking it out next week.
 
From what I could make of the screencaps the animation looks good and of high quality. Since I don't have cable this is one of those things I'll have to wait for on DVD.
Thanks for the screencaps!!
 
I found the GI Joe Renegades deconstruction remake more interesting. Prime felt a lot like the Cybertron series with boring blah TV CG animation. The later toons never seem to have much personality and character.
 
Orci and Kurtzman are executive producers of this by the way and they also have story credit on the "Transformers:Prime" adaption that came out last month. Youtube has the first episode up if any one missed this. I'm still on the fence on this but am leaning towards not liking it.
 
I hope there's more to Dwayne Johnson part than just being there for the first 5mins before Cliffjumper unfortunate encounter with Starscream.
 
It looks like the Transformers Animated not-so-anatomically-correct animation from the screen grabs, or that cartoon Batman that I keep seeing on tv which just looks off somehow.

I'll stick to the one and only G1 series from the 80s. At least I know the cinematic release linked to that series didn't have lines of dialogue involving the word 'masturbation'.
 
I'm eight-and-a-half minutes into Part 1, so this is all very preliminary, but the most prominent thing so far is how cheap the CGI looks. It's better than Beast Wars and Beast Machines, but not by much. In comparison with Star Wars: Clone Wars, this looks like it's a decade old already. I'm also not thrilled with how they just tossed us right into the Decepticons returning and breezed through Cliffjumper's encounted with them. It felt underdeveloped. I much preferred Animated's willingness to let us get to know the characters a bit before launching into the action.

On the plus side, Peter Cullen always rocks, I really like what I've heard so far of Combs's Ratchet, and the music is epic. I haven't seen enough yet to know if the story is any good, or if the human characters work, but the writing ends up strong enough in spite of the cheap look, this could be really good.
 
Episode two was much stronger than the first, but that's hardly surprising. This does indeed take place in the War for Cybertron universe, which is currently the "new" canon that attempts to unite many of the disparate elements of Generation One that have been floating around for years.

I give the series high marks for daring to take a good guy and totally work him through the grinder for two episodes straight. The personalities also came out for some characters very nicely. Arcee was given some good screen time and Ratchet was fun. Hearing Welker and Cullen as Megatron and Prime again was fantastic as well.

I agree that this opener was nowhere near as strong as the ones for say, "Beast Wars" but it was good enough to keep me interested and wondering what was coming next.
 
I'm not a big Transformers fan, but I liked the Beast shows and Animated, so I gave this a try. So far, having seen just the first episode, I'm impressed. The writing by Duane Capizzi is pretty good, and there's some impressive casting. Jeffrey Combs? Awesome!

What's interesting is that the core team of Autobots is basically the same as in TFA, except with the male motorcycle character Prowl replaced with female motorcycle Arcee. Bulkhead and Ratchet even look a lot like their TFA counterparts, though it's too early to say if their personalities are similar. But Bumblebee's much closer to the movie version in that he doesn't speak comprehensibly, as opposed to the fast-talking Bumblebee of TFA. I find the lack of speech to be an unappealing gimmick. Arcee's very unlike Prowl, a "tough girl" character as opposed to the philosophical Prowl. I find that kind of old-fashioned, this idea that a female character has to be made ultra-tough and aggressive in order to compensate for not being male; but at least they have a regular female Autobot character here (insofar as a transforming robot can be said to have a gender), which is a step up from TFA and the movies.

Not crazy about the character designs, except for Miko, the teenage girl. She's fun. Optimus looks strange with his faceplate retracted, an oddly soft-looking face.

I chuckled at Arcee's use of "Scrap!" as a curse word. There's a certain similarity to the Ninja Turtles cartoon's use of "shell" as a curse, though it comes closer to the mark in pronunciation. It's even more logical as a curse that would have meaning to the character using it.


cylkoth said:
Samuel Walters said:
. And it doesn't appear to be in the same continuity as the films, either. For all intents and purposes, this could be a whole new continuity.
Click to expand...
Which would be odd, since Orci and Kutzman are listed as having developed the series.
Click to expand...

But the main creative force behind the movies is Michael Bay (which is the root of their problems). O&K work for him on those, fulfilling the normal role of feature screenwriters, which is to write what the director tells them to write. Here, it seems, they're calling the shots, at least as far as the initial development was concerned.

On the other hand, if they do feel a proprietary interest in the movie continuity, it's understandable that they might want the show to avoid doing anything that would conflict with it. Making it a separate continuity avoids that risk.


Combs rules as always. You can never go wrong with him in your cast. Despite my being tired of Megatron, I liked the first hour. Will be checking it out next week.
Click to expand...

There is a certain nostalgia value to having Frank Welker back as Megatron, but just imagine if they'd cast Combs as Megatron instead of Ratchet. That would've been awesome. Sure, it would've been a different take on Megatron, but no more different than Welker, David Kaye, and Corey Burton were from each other. And Combs is just so darn good at playing a villain.
 
Course Combs was also playing The Leader on Avengers:EMH so... yeah I suppose it's nice seeing him play both a heroic character AND a villan. I love his Ratchet, I'm picturing juuuuuust a hint of re-Animator in ol' Rach.
 
I was able to watch the first episode in two parts on YouTube. I'll get to the next episode later but found the first 30 min episode to be a pseudo rehash of the first TF movie in places with TFA mixed in for good measure. Seems like they are attempting to combine the better elements of the two most recent incarnations into one show here.

The dumpy looking tween kid has a TFA vibe going on while the two teenage leads just scream of Sam/Mikela. Bulkhead is obviously a direct lift from TFA as well as Bumblebee is a direct TFM lift. Which by the way I agree with another poster, the non verbal Bumblebee was a fun gimmick out of the gate but at this stage is really stupid. He's not R2-D2 for god's sake.

I hope Cliffjumper returns, I suspect he's not 'slagged' and will be repairable when they find him.
I get why the premise states there are only 6 Autobots but it's obvious from Prime's lifted and reedited movie speech that other 'Bots are out there.

Also, where is the toy line tie-in for this show?

PSS - I also dislike the overly human mouth on Optimus, even the movie one didn't look too human-esque once his battle mask was retracted.
 
After seeing the first two episodes, I have to say that I'm glad I read the IDW prequel graphic novel before I saw it; without the story there (which deals with Arcee and Cliffjumper in particular) there's not a lot to build up towards what happened to Cliff, and to Arcee's particular reaction to it, in the show proper.

I wonder if they might consider animating that prequel as some sort of extra, for when the DVD/BD box sets start showing up?

Captain Craig said:
I get why the premise states there are only 6 Autobots but it's obvious from Prime's lifted and reedited movie speech that other 'Bots are out there.
Click to expand...

Optimus said there are only 5 Autobots left on Earth (that he's aware of, at least) but that others may remain elsewhere in the cosmos. (Not necessarily in the Cosmos, however.)

Also, where is the toy line tie-in for this show?
Click to expand...
Apparently, there won't be toys until at least next October.
 
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