Opening Impressions: Transformers Cyberverse

Wednesday, April 12th, 2017. The last Opening Impressions post I did (not counting Beast Machines) that used the tag Opening Impressions... wow it's been a while since I've done one of these, and this is assuming I haven't forgotten to put the right tags in some posts which is very likely that I have. I need to take a break from traditional anime for a bit though, so I figured why not wash away Sailor Moon with some giant robots? But what is there to do? The Japanese exclusives? Those are best saved for a marathon especially because that would defeat the point of trying to get away from anime for a while. The games? Hoping to get to War for Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron next year. Prime Wars Trilogy? Anything I could say on those has probably already been said. There's not much for me to add to that discussion. I wasn't a fan of it, even though I saw all three. I really wish that Mark Hamil's first role as a Transformer wasn't in those shows because I would have loved to see it in something with a higher production value. No... what I need is something new, something that discussions are still ongoing about, something like Cyberverse.

As per usual with these posts, while I try to make the official reviews more formal, these posts I let be more casual, bring in theories and the like. There will still be formal elements, but I can't make any concrete judgements on a show that hasn't even finished the first season yet.

The plot for the show so far (I hope it only lasts for this season as you'll soon see), revolves around Bumblebee having the equivalent of Robo Amnesia, Most of his memories are corrupted, which turns out to be a big problem because he was one of the crew members on the Ark, a vessel lead by Optimus Prime to retrieve the Allspark. Anyone else getting a sense of Dejavu? Anyway, as a result of the damaged memories, Windblade makes it her mission to restore Bumblebee's memories so that the two of them can find the Ark, and hopefully find the Allspark before the Decepticons do. This is the main reason why I hope this structure doesn't last past season 1, as I hope the structure goes "by the end of season 1, they found the Ark, they found Prime and the rest of the crew, season 2 will focus on finding the All Spark or whatever the next plot important item is". If it's three seasons of this, it's going to get boring really quickly. However, for now, I personally think it's been working. As much as some parts of the community hate the two of them, Bumblebee and Windblade do work well together in this show, and there have been some great moments between the two of them. Like with the movies, this incarnation of Bumblebee uses radio talk instead of an actual voicebox. I don't blame you if you hate it. I'm overall impartial to it as it depends on the execution of it, and a part of the charm here is that they do make his body more expressive then it was in the films which does make the radio talk work better for me.

The other characters though... are hit and miss for me right now. It's hard for me to get a grasp on the Decepticons because we've had very little time with them, but for the Autobots though... I did like the characterization of Wheeljack that we've seen so far, and the robo beard design is growing on me quite a bit. The new Optimus is trying way too hard to be Peter Cullin's Optimus, and it kills any interest I've got with him right now. I do like the fact that we're getting another voice actor try the role, it's a nice change of pace as, with the exception of Combiner Wars, we haven't heard anyone else play the role since Animated finished. However, due to the fact that they're clearly trying hard for it to be G1 Optimus, it's jarring when he does things that aren't G1 like. Question, is he saying Teletran 1 or Teletron 1? Because I keep hearing Teletron 1! The worst one though for me is Grimlock. A part of me thinks they're setting up his more animalistic side for a future story, but a calm, sophisticated voice sounds wrong to be coming out of this body.

It just sounds jarring, mostly due to the fact that they haven't made any attempt to hide what he's going to change into. It's not a different model that they're using in the show, it's a model that screams "I turn into a T-Rex!" Though on the subject of the models, overall they're solid and do work well with the art style. My main problem comes down to the Decepticons. We've got Megatron, Soundwave. a new character in the form of Shadow Striker, and then we have the Seekers. Every other Decepticon we've seen so far has a Seeker body, including Starscream, returning favourite from Animated, Slipstream (who apparently now runs the Seekers), Thundercracker finally returns to the TV screen, a new seeker who I've heard goes by the name Haze? Don't quote me on that, and some more generic cons with the Seeker body type. Apparently, we're supposed to be getting Acid Storm at some point too, and I have to ask, who cares about Acid Storm? Really, who? He's an easy repaint of Starscream, yet there have been times when he's gotten a release in plastic before any of the Seekers most people care about getting one. Who cares about Acid Storm, Nova Storm (who I had to double check because I always think it's Sunstorm) and Ion Storm?

Animation wise, it's ok. It looks great in motion, but I'm not a fan of the colour contrast. It feels a tad too bright, like there's a faint layer of bloom lighting over it, washing out the colours to an extent. I'd have prefered something a bit more muted if it meant that the colours could stand out more. It's only really a problem when the setting's earth, because on Cybertron, the characters look great, but that's more because of how muted and lifeless Cybertron is shown as. It's very easy for colours to stand out against dark brown. The soundtrack hasn't hooked me either, it's more background noise and the show's intro is generic (though I'm thankful for the fact that it's not doing another remix of the Transformers theme. I will give it that!)

Overall? The show has caught enough of my interest to keep watching it at least. Though there are things I hope to see fixed going forward, such as more variety on the Decepticon side. Due to the fact that Windblade actively states that she's a City Speaker in the show, it leads me to believe that we could see some Titans on the TV screen again, something that we haven't seen since RID 2001. Is it a gamechanger? No, but it doesn't have to be. Will it serve the role of being a show meant to run for three years then get cut and rebooted? Yes. Will it do more than that? Time will tell.