Transformers Prime

Your thoughts on this show? How does it compare to other TF cartoons?

>Takes itself so seriously it becomes incredibly boring
>CG animation restricts all action to brown deserts and any instances of cities are completely devoid of people to save costs; even the New York episode had to take place in a subway tunnel
>Item Collect plot line
>Decepticons are killed off so soon after being introduced that a villain roster is non existent beyond 3 or so characters

Not as dull as any of the anime shows, but certainly the most boring Western Transformers cartoon ever produced.

Not perfect but good.
It's hard for me to compare one TF series to another because largely they all have something different to offer, rarely do two TF shows have the same tone or themes, it's usually very different stylistically or thematically aside from the general theme of "good" vs "evil"

>Your thoughts on this show?
Honestly I think it was a decent show. Not without its problems but I definitely like it overall. I also seem to have a minority opinion that it improved after s1. S1 just had too many moments of characters acting out of character or going balls retarded in the last 5 minutes of an episode to maintain the status quo. The example I remember most being Arcee beating Megs, then going
>Optimus wouldn't want me to kill
And so they walk away leaving Megs totally imprisoned and at their mercy not even trying to bring him into their custody. Then like 2 episodes later she's campaigning to kill a comatose Megs.

>How does it compare to other TF cartoons?
Beast Wars is probably always gonna sit on top for me. But it's around a similar standing to the G1 animes and Animated for me.
Which Sup Forums might crucify me for.
Rescue Bots I like for what it is around a similar level, but I nee to get back to it to be sure. Not watched since s1 ended.
And it's above above USG1, newRiD, Unicron Trilogy, CarRobots and Beast Machines.

>CG animation restricts all action to brown deserts and any instances of cities are completely devoid of people to save costs; even the New York episode had to take place in a subway tunnel
This bothered me too. The show is, arguably, the best looking of them all, good CGI animation and character design, but the backgrounds and settings were all so dull.

My favourite Starscream and Ratchet were in this so....

The first season was decent and everything after was eh to awful. It took itself way too seriously.

Those hooker pumps though...

Writing has it's awkward moments but is fairly solid overall.
General blandness of backgrounds is somewhat upsetting and character animation and designs are great and kinda make recent RiD look like shit in comparison
The show's best girl.
Arcee ( and her hypnotically pretty eyes) and the spooder can't even compete.

Pros:
>Animation and designs
>More 'mature' themes
>Less focus on human characters after s1
>Coked up on Dark Energon Megatron
>Stiletto-heel, scum of the universe, Starscream
>Morally questionable and vengeful Arcee

Cons:
>backgrounds and city devoid of people or life
>had to stick with status quo
>video-gamery plot of 'collect the artifacts'
>took itself TOO seriously at times

All in all I think It's one of the better shows. It has much better and consistent animation than previous cartoons + both Welker and Cullen reprising their roles as Megatron and Optimus. It isn't full of shitty fillers and human villains like TFA.

It had a promising first season. It had its flaws, but there was a lot of potential for later seasons.

unfortunately they never reached that potential. It mostly floundered around after the first season. It's a decent show but it's no Beast Wars

Stupid sexy Starscream.

It's a good show, and excels in some areas (like having the best Megatron, Ultra Magnus, and Ratchet, and having some of the best TF fights we've ever seen), but the longer it went on the more some of its flaws became apparent.

One thing that started to bug me over time was how serious Optimus was all the time to the point that he went from feeling like an amazing leader to just a go-to solution. I always imagine Optimus being weary from war, but still having that small spark of vigor and charisma when he needs it. It sounds silly, but I loved that scene in the G1 cartoon when Optimus tries to play basketball in hopes of bonding with his human friends. The show needed some of that element.

There also were way too few characters introduced. We needed far more Transformers instead of countless episodes of the same ones hunting relics.

The finale was a great tie up to the show, but the movie completely undercut it for me.

But like I said, I loved how a lot of characters were handled, and the fight scenes were fantastic. I also did like the direction the show took with a lot of ideas, like Megatron not being satisfied with the war ending in any other way than him directly killing Optimus.

>Optimus wouldn't want me to kill

That was the absolute bane of the series. The writers flip flopped so hard on the morals of the Autobots. One minute Prime hesitates to kill Megatron, who is unarmed and almost dead, then the next Optimus goes for Megs like a serial killer when his back is turned.

I think it's that certain writers understand that they're in an actual war, and though the Autobots are all for compassion, they also know that there's a line in the sand, and other writers think the Autobots play by superhero rules, which makes zero sense since it's established that both sides have had massive body counts.

Bumblebee should have stayed dead

>I always imagine Optimus being weary from war, but still having that small spark of vigor and charisma when he needs
True, haven't thought about it before, that's a part of Optimus we didn't get from this one at all. G! always had this sort of, i guess warm fatherly feel to him.

boring, had no endgame and seemed to just wander all over the place, ugly color palette constantly set up interesting plot points that were subverted back to the status quo

The best western TF show was Animated.

my personal favorite is still Armadax even as objectively bad as it is. you can tell the writers were trying to do something special and were straining against the budget constraints

It saddens me the figures are so well-articulated and designed, but has such shitty, or almost non-existent paint-jobs.

It had a lot of good moments but the sum of its parts was pretty drab. It all came together into a very bland stew and I wish that the writing was overall better

Welcome to the modern age of Transformers, technology gets better in some ways, paint is a god damn rarity

Although the super simple style of Transformations have taken precedent since then too

>tfw you can't like TF anymore because nothing else will have as good of a Starscream

It had the most boring Shockwave, but he made up for it his fucking obsession with making robot dino dragons like holy shit even when they clearly weren't going to be loyal Decepticons he still did it the absolute fucking madman.

G1 Optimus - quality dad, will call you sport and cook a good hamburger on Sundays
UT Optimus - A GI Joe PSA swiftly followed by a "I got RIPPED in 2 weeks thanks to a minicon here's how" ad
TFA Optimus - that jpg of a cat with a knife pointed at it
TFP Optimus - Spock armed with twenty laser guns and one copy of how to be a dad

Bay Optimus - Abusive dad who hits you because he loves you

I see Bay Optimus as like a dad who is so sick of dealing with his shit kids and shit friends

Kind of like a violent Hank Hill

>You win a sport game
>I'm so proud son. Come here, give me your face.
>Dad NO!

it had a character who was supposed to be a nurse and a mother but didn't have a giant fat ass

very poor

only time it was appropriate is when Jack does it given he's still a teenager who hasn't been through millenia of warfare and later it's implied he was wrong about that

Best Ratchet, best Starscream, best Arcee, best Soundwave, based Bulkhead, best Megatron, best humans.

And let's not forget Predaking.

>best humans.
not sure about that, while it does have Fowler, I'm not sure he makes up for everyone else

>Fowler
Ernie Goddamn Hudson, who deserves a fuckton more credit for everything he's been in

>Jack
Obligatory viewpoint character, obvious love interest for Arcee until the execs meddled, grows significantly over the course of the series and looks like he's gonna be a hell of a guy if he ever shows up again as an adult

>Miko
Starts out annoying, but gets great character moments with Bulkhead and starts to shine later on. Earns her place with the Wreckers.

>Glasses McGee
Somewhere on the spectrum, but manages to be cute and endearing without being annoying, mostly.

I'd say best adults and worst kids

>based bulkhead
the only good thing he did was ruin Knockout's paintjob. He pales in comparison to OG Bulkhead.

Nothing makes up for Miko.

>Earns her place with the Wreckers.
10/10 Would rage again.

>You decide to make a bad choice
>Tell dad
>Dad knows it'll ruin your life
>"Go ahead son"
>Choice ruins your life
>Dad lets it happen so you "can learn"

That was essentially Dark of the Moon.

>worst kids
Jack's honestly one of the better kids in the series

>Dropped plotlines everywhere
>One of the top 5 worst humans in the franchise (FUCK YOU MIKO!)
it was okay but the two above points keep it from being great

TFP's Megatron needs a lot more credit than he gets. He was easily the best mainstream version of Megs.
>Cunning and manipulative
>Completely certain his shit doesn't stink
>Rose from a lowly gladiator meant to die to a politician to the leader of a world sized army
>Physically wrecks everyone but Optimus, and when he can't used his skill and surroundings like a legit militant
>Dat Welker voice

He even got Starscream to get his ass back in line.

I love 'em both. They're very different Bulkheads, though.

I unironically liked her by the end.

You are goddamn right. Some of Welker's best work, too.

>TFP's Megatron needs a lot more credit than he gets. He was easily the best mainstream version of Megs.
It gets hard for me, I think Megs really has a lot of great depictions.
TFA, TFP and IDW Megs are all incredible. Also technically not the "same" Megatron in the way those are but Beast Wars Megs is amazing too.

Beast Wars
>best hammy over the top self aware villain who loves being a villain Megatron.
Animated
>best imposing final boss don't fucking mess with this guy Megatron
Prime
>best tenacious and brutal Megatron who just doesn't stop
IDW
>best I was fighting for something that really mattered and lost my way Megatron

Soundwave was under used but when he got a chance to shine he stomped bitches like it was nothing.
If the heroes didn't have plot Armor he'd killed about half the cast

>Beast Wars
>>best hammy over the top self aware villain who loves being a villain Megatron.
SHOW RUINED BY WASPINATOR AND FARTS
>Animated
>>best imposing final boss don't fucking mess with this guy Megatron
GOD I HATE THIS SHOW, THE ART STYLE MAKES IT FOR KIDS ONLY
>best imposing final boss don't fucking mess with this guy Megatron
>Prime
I WROTE BETTER FANFICTION
>IDW
>>best I was fighting for something that really mattered and lost my way Megatron
GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY

>GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY
it's only gay if you make it gay.

nice b8 m8 but you forgot just one thing IT'S ALL GAY NIGGA, THEY ALL GAY

...

As much as I like GI this remains so painful, I feel like fucking Rainbow Dash created it aside from the last couple panels, which probably would be made by Twilight Sparkle

wasted potential: the series

first season was the best, went downhill afterwards.

It really did have some of the best incarnations of the characters.

I forget. Did this Starscream actually end up being loyal to Megs?

Yes and it was a mistake.

Yes, only to get ditched anyway.
His suffering in TF:P sure is delicious.

He fit an entire show's worth of quality into a single line of dialogue.

Did you see the episode of RiD where he came back? Worth the whole rest of the show just for that.

David Kaye is a worthy Megatron, yeeees.

Yeah, he was genuinely upset when Megatron jobbed to Bumblebee.

Honestly as much as it was played as a redemption moment for Megatron, abandoning his followers was a dick move on Megs's part.

The prick left Soundwave in the Shadowzone.
Soundwave!

soundwave did return twice in the new rid to be fair

hes a strong independent mech who dont need no megs

It was pretty fun. Not perfect, but it had some heart to it that the anime shows before were kind of lacking (though those did have their moments here and there).

I especially liked how Starscream in the end actually wised up and stopped trying to overthrow Megatron, becoming legitimately loyal to him rather than just going back to "I'll have my day!" as he usually did in these shows.

Will say that the third season should have been longer and they could have expanded the roster on both sides.

THAT'S VERY INTERESTING, YOUR OPINION IS VERY INTERESTING

>I especially liked how Starscream in the end actually wised up and stopped trying to overthrow Megatron, becoming legitimately loyal to him rather than just going back to "I'll have my day!" as he usually did in these shows.
Honestly I thought it was a mistake, especially as it happened right after his biggest success. Felt like the writers didn't know where to go with it so they back peddled.

Part of Starscream's appeal is that he doesn't know when to give up, and it didn't help that they kept up Megatron's part of the sadomasochist dynamic so he became sort of pitiful.
It was weird, Prime!Starscream was probably the most accomplished of all the animated Starscream's and yet he was framed as the biggest joke.

>And so they walk away leaving Megs totally imprisoned and at their mercy not even trying to bring him into their custody. Then like 2 episodes later she's campaigning to kill a comatose Megs
That happened in the reverse order coma megs was early S1 the imprisoned megs is later in the season

It's crap. It's a show with no consequences, relevancy, or tension.

>BULKHEAD MIGHT DIE! OR AT LEAST HE'LL NEVER FUNCTION THE SAME AGAIN! EVER!
>NAH I'M FUCKIN WITCHA, HE'S OK!

>UNICRON IS AT THE CENTER OF EARTH!
>eh, he's sleeping again, everything is ok, let's never speak of it again.

>THESE INSECTICONS ARE ULTRA POWERFUL! THE VEHICONS AND THEM HATE EACH OTHER AND THEY HAVE A RIVALRY
>I guess they weren't that strong and they get along now, guess.

>A FACTION OF HUMANS IS INCREASINGLY ACQUIRING CYBERTRONIAN TECHNOLOGY!
>lol let's kill em off before the opening credits.

>WHAT! A HUMAN-TRANSFORMER HYBRID!? WHAT WILL THIS MEAN!?
>Nothing cause he's written off by episode's end.

>THE AUTOBOTS HAVE THE STAR SABER, A LEGENDARY WEAPON THAT WILL TURN THE TIDES OF WAR! MEGATRON IS PISSING HIS PANTS!
>oh wait, Megatron can just graft a Prime arm on himself and make a weapon twice as powerful as said legendary weapon.

>DREADWING BETRAYED MEGATRON AND GAVE THE AUTOBOTS THE FORGE!? WHERE WILL HIS CHARACTER GO NOW?
>woops he's dead now

>OPTIMUS PRIME IS ABOUT TO DIE AND SMOKESCREEN IS DESTINED TO BE LEADER!?
>Prime's ok, u gais!

>What? The Decepticon ship is coming back to life? could it be? Is it transforming?
>Ok, it's offline again. Let's never mention this again.

Also, the characters and atmosphere are tremendously boring.

Yea, but it's been done to death for over 30 years with him. To have Starscream in at least one instance learn he can't win and is better off as the right/left hand of his master is at least something refreshing.

Yea, because everything else from the franchise has been expertly written.

Mate, it's a fucking franchise about robutts throwing down as cars and other vehicles. It's not exactly the height of masterpiece writing.

I thought it made somewhat sense. He was practically crawling on his knees back to Megatron and the latter let him return as his SIC on top of stopping Dreadwing from killing him. He was super grateful, and too much of a coward to start up shit again.

You're not wrong, but I also don't think that makes it a bad show either. Maybe I just am jaded when it comes to so called "action shows" but I never expect them to have any worthwhile story , I just love Prime cause I like some of the characters and was entertained enough to watch the whole series

I only started watching it because I want to bone the fuck out of June. It actually got really interesting, wobbled around for a bit in the later seasons, but went out on a high note.

...

Trips of taste.

>those toned legs from hours of walking each nursing shift clad in fishnets

I guess it's because they didn't really do anything with it. I guess because he wasn't better off.

Megatron never changed his attitude towards him and Starscream's lot never got any better. Neither of them changed as characters, Starscream if anything lost his competency, and then there was a balance in the Megs and SS dynamic since Starscream wasn't instigating anything but was still getting treated like the old days.

And then Megs died, came back and was like "Sorry, I was wrong. Bye".
So as a result; Starscream comes off as being retrospectively mostly right in his attempts to subverse Megatron's rule and he might have been better off if he just kept those relics to himself. Which I don't think is what they where going for.

It's not a bad idea but it felt like they just wanted to return to the status quo, minus the treachery.

People has/had way too high expectations.. It was good for a TF cartoon, one of the best imo, but it's still fucking Transformers. Things going back to status quo is a stable of most western cartoons.

Yes there were many things the show could have done more of, such as killing off characters for real, exploring the grey morality of some of the autobots etc. but as an adult I recognize that these shows are made with kids in mind and CAN'T be everything I'd like it to be.

*an imbalance

They kind of did. He started listening to orders and doing his best to serve the Decepticon cause. And in the movie finale, he was ready to serve Megatron once more without any delay, showing that his loyalty hadn't faltered in the time since Megs had been dead.

At least it was something new, maybe there'll be another instance by someone with the freedom to really build on the concept. Let's not forget, all of the TF shows are largely meant to be episodic (even when they do have a seasonal plot device), so it is tricky for the writers to really do much when the main purpose of the entire franchise is to push toys.

JunexFowler felt a little off to me, a bit forced.
JunexOptimus was more entertaining.

>TFA Optimus
>not the best Optimus

>Starscream if anything lost his competency
Underfueled bum Starscream showing off his best competency and then losing it after coming back was a bit weird.
At least he kept his cave PTSD.

>Things going back to status quo is a stable of most western cartoons.
Animated was a show without Status Quo

>Rose from a lowly gladiator meant to die to a politician to the leader of a world sized army
>>Physically wrecks everyone but Optimus, and when he can't used his skill and surroundings like a legit militant

>Those times when he'd use his gladitorial skills in the field
>That fight with the Insecticons
PrimeMegs was the hypest e

Except it kind of was for the most part. They fought a bad guy, won, and then fought another in the next episode. The only times things really changed was with the season finales where the big shit went down and game changing stuff happened. Like Sari being revealed to be a robot hybrid and Prowl dying.

I'm an old Beast Wars-fag who constantly bemoans the popularity of the obviously inferior car-verse Michael Bay has now eternally cursed us with, and even *I* like this show.

Hard to tell from that pic how well her legs are. But she probably did have a nice figure from her work and taking care of herself.

Ah right. I just remember it making an impact on me the fluctuating morals between those 2 moments and that they were in the same season.

How so? It had run of the mill weekly villains, tons of filler and while each season and the show as a whole had an overarching plot, it was still mostly episodic. I didn't see it removing itself from the 'status quo' any more than Prime. It was getting real good just before it got cancelled though.

Also Sari was cute. Best human.

>she upgraded herself into a teen body
Funny how that never got used in lewds

This. Other than s3 Animated probably clung to status quo more than Prime does (though it has the benefit of not creating situations that should force it to change and then make the characters act dumb to maintain it). It actually stands out to me more because each episode ends stressing to me just how much the characters have learned their lesson from what they went through that week only to go back to doing the exact same thing the following episode.

TFA had the most tolerable humans of any TF show, easily.

although I suppose Sari doesn't really count

The kids in Prime weren't too bad. Miko was a tad annoying at first, but wound up maturing quite nicely in the end. Jack had a lot of potential, though it didn't get to really bloom in the end. Raff I'll admit was just kind of the human Ratchet, an egghead with not much else.

Certainly better than the generics seen in most of the anime shows.

>thinking I thought he wasn't best Optimus
He's the sassiest classiest dadbot in the whole multiverse.

if it makes the meme context clearer I imagine Sentinel Prime holding the knife

And then Megs came back and nullified the whole cause which undermines what happened a bit.
Honestly I think it's a good example of why values like honour and loyalty don't particularly work well when applied to rather extreme and blatantly evil agenda's.

Definitely my favorite of the Primes.

>And then Megs came back and nullified the whole cause which undermines what happened a bit.
Not sure what you mean. Did he return in RiD?

Predacons Rising.

Screamer did for RiD and he's back to attempted Megatron murder but now it's for vengeance instead of ambition. Though he did keep the latter on the side.

But that's what I mentioned, he was ready to rejoin with his master in the movie despite having plenty of time to have gone back to being the wannabe leader who wouldn't follow anyone ever again.

I'm sure JuneXFowler was pushed because early in the series after June finds out about the Autobots she goes to their base and when she finds out Optimus Prime is going to arrive and she says something like, "Optimus will be here? I better get prettied up!"

Wasn't that just a mom joke to annoy her son?

Picture it in your head. She works long shifts at a job devoid of emotion, comes home late at night to a cold bed and sees her son less and less as he takes his own steps out into the world and spends more and more time with new people. She puts on her lingerie, the fabric creased from sitting in a drawer for months, and looks herself over in the mirror. 36, single, leggy, lonely, and horny. Cooped up at home trying to be a responsible mother, but craving for something hot and primal, something she hasn't felt in years. She knows she looks damn good, but can't quite bring herself to let go, even though she needs it so desperately. A ticking time bomb of sexual frustration and maturing hormones, packed into a 130 pound woman with calves to die for.

And then a few drinks with a coworker she has over for the 4th leads to blissful relief.

Except he's framed as being wrong for doing so. His loyalty to the cause (although if I'm honest I think they where aiming for sycophantism over loyalty) is presented as being wrong.
>gone back to being the wannabe leader who wouldn't follow anyone ever again
And then he went back to that.

I'm not saying that he didn't change in respect to his loyalty, but the context that it happened in didn't, which undermines the character development.

I guess what I'd argue is that he didn't develop as a character; he stayed Starscream but minus the treachery and added incompetence.

>"Where's Optimus? I wore heels and everything."
>"Mom!"

Best joke of the show N/A.

>coworker
>not OP or Ratchet
You almost had me user

Self-insert as the coworker, dingus. June's not gonna go out in a little black cocktail dress and pumps just looking for free dick, she's too restrained for that.

But she will get dolled up like a slut if that's what you like when it happens again, after her sex life gets woken up and she can't help but go for more.

Fuck, I'm tempted to write this out but I'm already writing for other threads.

JuneXanybot would be amazing. If you're going to have humans in your TF story, you might as well make them romance a bot

>not OP or Ratchet
They are for pure, pure!.