Its surprising how much the Bayformers films can drain from you when you watch them in a row in the space of a week. Fun fact: This was going to be the final review of the Transformers Marathon.
If you were to ask me "What was the best thing to come out of the Bayformers films?" the only thing I would say is "The Aftermath". New takes on the stories came to the TV shows, bringing back aspects from previous generations. The first was Transformers Animated, almost a direct sequel to Generation 1 and then came the subject of this review: Transformers Prime. A fresh reboot for a old story, time to delve into the world of Transformers Prime.
So what's the plot? Megatron creates the Decepticons, planet gets plunged into a war that kills the planet, forcing all Cybertronians to flee in order to survive. Some forces arrive on earth and the battle resumes. When I said it was a fresh reboot for an old story, I wasn't kidding. Like with Super Mario games, you don't watch Transformers for the overarching story, but for the characters in the story.
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| Yes, that is Starscream on a Cybertronian Scooty Pop Jr. |
And on the subject on the characters, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that these are the most realistic portrayals of all these characters. Nothing to dark and depressing, but you can tell that they've been doing this for a long time, you can tell that there have been losses in the war. All the characters still have their own unique personalities and even throw in gags every now and then based on their personalities. All the characters get screen time in order to develop their personalities as well, something that I wished the films would do. I'm actually invested in these characters, even the three human characters, who harken back to the Cybertron character design where each of them are actually useful in some form. Even the Decepticons get some air time, not as much as the Autobots, but enough to flesh out the main team. Aside from the three humans, there's a bigger emphasis on humans in TFP with the biggest one being Mech, a human team that can be summed up as human Decepticons. I openly admit that one of my favorite characters in this is Knock Out, purely because of the personality... that and I think Daran Norris is a great voice actor for villain characters (Case in point being Mercurymon from Digimon Frontier). While short, his interactions with Breakdown is also great, even though its short as Breakdown has a few... poor human interactions over the series...
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| "SOUNDWAVE SUPERIOR TROLL ALL HUMAN TROLLS INFERIOR" |
One of the things I love about TFP is all the nods to previous generations. The designs of the characters are Bay esque, which isn't a problem for me as I like the designs. Even then, there are lots of little nods. Character designs are closer to their G1 designs for some characters... mainly Ultra Magnus and Wheeljack. Several characters have their old voice actors back (Optimus, Megatron and Soundwave to name a few). The return of Insecticons, Predacons, Terrorcons, the Star Sabre, Dinobots get a mention, the Wreckers, the warship bearing a strong resemblance to the Nemesis, Seaker Armada, Vector Sigma, Alpha Trion, the relics of Iacon, Kaon and more. This was written for Transformers fans, by Transformers fans.
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| "YOU WILL COWER BEFORE MY MASSIVE SHINY BODY!!!" |
There is one major problem with the show though, make of this as you want, it climaxes way to quickly. The season finale for Season 1 is Unicron, which I love this new interpretation for, but there are three seasons and a movie (up next). Where do you go after the God of Chaos? Nothing against Predaking and the Omega Lock, but Unicron you ain't. While the first part of the finale does do a nice job at cleaning up the story, it doesn't feel as satisfying as something like Cybertron finale. However, this is somewhat fixed in the actual finale of the series, the movie: Predacons Rising.
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| Someone ordered a moving team? |
With Cybertron now able to sustain life, Optimus and Wheeljack set out to find what will give the planet the ability to make new life, the Allspark. While this is happening, the rest of Team Prime is at home dealing with two new Predacons Starscream and Shockwave made and the return of Megatron who has been taken over by Unicron in a way akin to the Generation 1 movie, the reason why is a spoiler, and my rule for spoiler warnings on this site is "If it's over 10 years old, the spoiler warning is nullified". Insert final battle between Team Prime (and Knockout, Predaking and the two new Preacons) and Unicron/ Megatron/ Galvatron and the hundreds of Terrorcons made up of Predacon bones and congratulations, that's the movie.
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| See kids, this is why the animals in the zoo are kept behind something solid. |
There's not a lot to say about it as it's basically a movie based on the show, as such it suffers from the same problem it and many others suffer from, its basically a extended episode of the show. HOWEVER, the thing you have to realize is that Transformers Prime is basically a movie in a TV show's body, so for Predacons Rising to be called "to similar to the show" just goes to show how good the show is. I will happily bash the Bayformers movies (from an analytical perspective of course), but its mainly because when I herd that there was going to be a Transformers Movie, in the long term, I wanted to be like this. I'm not joking when I say that the pilot of Transformers Prime does a better job at introducing new fans to Transformers then the four Bayformers films do combined.
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| Because we can't have something without a "The day is saved" pose... |
Next week, I'll be taking a break from reviews (not another hiatus) and tackling some impressions. Next Week, three new forms of content in the form of Opening Impressions, and three standard impressions, with something big coming the week after. Up next, the Opening impressions of Transformers: Robots in Disguise (2015).
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