Transformers Kingdom - What did you Think

[Hussar]

Ok, disclaimer, I'm not a huge Transformers nerd. I watched the movies, I watched the old cartoons when I was a kid, I watched the hell out of the Beast Wars series when it was on and really loved that. So, when they came out with the new Transformers trilogy, I'm watching it as someone who has very little knowledge of the universe.

Overall, I liked it. I thought it hit some very cool notes and the stories were pretty cool.

I'll admit, the first two parts of the trilogy lost me a bit. "Dead universe?" WTF is that? Dude with like 5 faces that cuts four of them off? Ok... cool?

But, overall, I did like it. I just wish they maybe had done a tad less fan service and a bit more exposition.

 

[Dire Bare]

The animation pulled me into each chapter of the trilogy . . . but I never got past the first couple of episodes each. Fun (kinda), but dry and unengaging for me.

I was an 80s kid during the original run of Transformers, and it holds a lot of nostalgia for me. But the Beast Wars dropped when I was a young(ish) adult, and I could never wrap my head around robots transforming into animals. I had the same feeling again watching the first episode of Kingdom.

Now, the opening sequence on Cybertron for the Bumblebee live-action flick . . . that hit my buttons!

 

[Blue Orange]

I thought they did a nice job with the first two series, both homaging the original (the opening sequence with Bumblebee and Wheeljack on Iacon is a clear callback to the beginning of the original series) and putting a new spin on it. The five-faced creature is a Quintesson, a sort of greater-scope antagonist to the Decepticons dating back to the original series (they made both Autobots and Decepticons). The Dead Universe was in the IDW comics (which I only read a few of).

I skipped the last series, having lacked any personal connection to Beast Wars for similar reasons to you. But someone who grew up with them might have a different view.

 

[Leatherhead]

I am deep into Transformers stuff right now, partly because of the typical mid-life crisis stuff, and partly because I needed a hobby that didn't depend on having a group of other people around to hang out with for the past year and a half.

I give it an 8. But then again, I "got" all the things it was trying to go for.

I watched the entire series on 1.25x speed, as was recommended to me. And honestly that felt like it should have been the default speed due to the pacing of the dialog. I want to elaborate that the voice actors themselves were not bad, just that the direction was off. ( Hearing a 25 or 35 year old catch phrase with the "wrong voice" is just unfortunate and not their fault. )

As a toy commercial, it's better than most. They used the actual toy CAD files (or whatever they are called) for making the character models, which is really nice for those of us who like that kind of thing, enabling you to take your figures and re-create your favorite scenes easily. While there were a few "Lets get this toy in here" moments, I was ironically disappointed that they did nothing with the Fossilizers (A new set of transformers that have skeletal dinosaur alt-modes and are totally rad).

There is a lot of violence and death in the series, as is normal for Transformers outside of the Saturday-Morning Cartoon block. I think they handled most of them them well. A few heroic sacrifices, a few merciless slaughters. Even Elita 1's off screen death is poignant, despite how easily wrong such a thing could have gone.

 

[Janx]

I'm not sure which one that is, but I assume it's the latest War For Cybertron entry that came out.

I like the series, but I loathe how netflix makes each one a new title instead of releasing them under the same series identifier. This makes me have to tag it each time a new batch comes out, and gets confusing on which one I saw already or what order.

 

[Dire Bare]

I'm not sure which one that is, but I assume it's the latest War For Cybertron entry that came out.

I like the series, but I loathe how netflix makes each one a new title instead of releasing them under the same series identifier. This makes me have to tag it each time a new batch comes out, and gets confusing on which one I saw already or what order.

It is. It's the third chapter of War for Cybertron. There is a Transformers collection on Netflix that lists all three chapters, you can scroll down the info screen for any of the three to find it at the bottom. Not sure if you can tag the collection, or find it easily someplace else.

 

[Zardnaar]

It is. It's the third chapter of War for Cybertron. There is a Transformers collection on Netflix that lists all three chapters, you can scroll down the info screen for any of the three to find it at the bottom. Not sure if you can tag the collection, or find it easily someplace else.

Ah need to do some more watching. Think I've only seen part one.

Edit. Watching pt 2 now.

Edit 2.0. This is how you do a reboot. Homage to the original accounting for an older audience, characters faithful to themselves and not taking a chainsaw to the franchise "just because".

Generally I hate reboots this is one of the better ones.

 

[MoonSong]

For context, I don't have love for G1. I mean unless you consider the Japan exclusive ones to be G1 (They technically are?) I actually had a lot of exposure to Beast Wars and loved it growing up. (Airazor was my first ever transformer)

My opinions. I really missed the Dinobot/Ratrap banter. This was a sore point. I also missed Waspinator. How do you reboot BW without Waspinator? I also felt Megs wasn't egomaniacal enough and too much of a pushover for Megatron. I think Elita should have had an onscreen death.

But everything else... It was great! I loved how they conveyed Airazor and Tigraton being in a relationship without having to mention it. (On a similar way, I loved how they implied Silverbot existed in this continuity, he just didn't make it long enough). Dinobot will always be Dinobot and he didn't disappoint this time.

 

[Zardnaar]

I liked it. Not familiar with beast wars.

Season 2 is my favorite I think.

Animation, storyline, development etc can't complain. Overall very good.

 

[Janx]

I finished it last night.

Um. It's a muddled mess. Conclusions leapt to, without enough connective information. Gorrilla guy says a couple nouns and slams on the console, and they're calling him a genius. On the one end, it's trek technobabble, on the other, it should form a coherent sentence.

Optimus just happens to know who Nemesis Prime is? Nobody explained that to him. Everytime somebody was going to do or ask for exposition, they got cut off.

Ghosts appearing to save the day, way too many times.

Megatron suffers from D&D battlegrid-less "I'm everywhere" syndrome. One minute he's trapped after taking Matrix from Prime again, the next he's free and shooting.

What kind of idiot doesn't watch for the THIRD bad guy when the first two are in the middle of a betrayal. Optimus had ONE job.

I liked the series in general, but this season seemed to leap around to conclusions that were not obvious. Maybe it was expecting folks to know the original timelines of these characters or something. It felt off.