Animated Series discussion thread (spoilers allowed)

[donosaur]

I've got a feeling that Sentinel and Magnus might disregard anything Optimus tells them. It'll be Mission Accomplished all over again. Even if they do decide to check up on Longarm, I bet he's got alibis out the wazoo. Actually exposing him will be the fun part.

[Gomess]

So I've been away for a while, have you guys seen Transwarped yet, orrrr...?

'Cos I've gotta say, Rodimus and Strika's voices suck. Maybe I was expecting too much.

Oil Slick's kinda pervy. I want Spittor's toy! Blurr has officially grown on me. Omega Supreme is a DUBYA EM DEE. Perceptor is Microsoft Sam. And other such observations!

[Sparky Prime]

So I've been away for a while, have you guys seen Transwarped yet, orrrr...?

I just realized that season 3 started this weekend. Caught the episode on youtube.

Perceptor's voice was... interesting. Not what I expected at all. I noticed the Elite Guard headquarters on Cybertron is modeled after G1 Metroplex. Apparently Sari is a Cybertronian protoform that randomly showed up in Sumdac's lab and somehow used his DNA to become part organic. Kinda lame that Megatron tells Omega Supreme what his duty as an Autobot is. And Sari goes back to her old ways of overusing the key. Seems that she finally drained the thing with her 'upgrade'. No mention of the Allspark fragments.

[donosaur]

Holy crap... that was kind of intense. Poor Blurr

[BWprowl]

Yeah, the demise of Blurr caught me totally off guard, it was unexpectedly brutal. And then Shockwave just casually disposes of the remains! Cold.

'Cos I've gotta say, Rodimus and Strika's voices suck. Maybe I was expecting too much.

Eh, you do know that Rodimus is, in fact, Judd Nelson, right? I mean, your opinion is still totally valid, possibly moreso with the knowledge. Anyway, I actually kind of liked Strika's voice (even if giving her the accent was too easy a leap for them), and was indifferent towards Rodimus. It's Oil Slick I wasn't fond of. He sounds far too pedestrian, not metal at all. Blackout sounds like a Boomer from Gears of War.

Thing is, aside from any voice issues, I *loved* the Chaar Team, they were absolutely awesome and deserve way more screen time in the episodes to come, though they probably won't get it.

Other stuff:
I chuckled a bit at Microsoft Sam as Perceptor, then got irritated because I found it *really* hard to understand him. Anyone else have this problem?

This thing really felt like a full 'movie', as opposed to TARO, where you could more easily see the cracks between the episodes. 'Transwarped' had more of a complete arc to it, with well-executed multiple plot-lines and themes, especially the one concerning Ratchet and the parallels between Sari and Omega Supreme. Ratch shined in this episode, though he'll probably get overshadowed by ALL THE OTHER CRAP that was going on.

Speaking of Omega Supreme, I feel for the guy, but he's an idiot. I mean, I know the idea was that he was supposed to have Ratchet around him, guiding him all the time, but still. On his relationship with Ratchet however, good catch by the writers in sneaking that in the explain why a lowly repair crew was in possesssion of the most destructive Autobot weapon ever constructed in the first place.

Along a similar vein, I was totally jazzed by the Ratchet's upgrading of Bumblebee's stingers back up to 'Battle Grade'. As far as I can tell, this was done solely to rectify some disparities from a one-off gag in 'Autoboot Camp', something they didn't really *have* to do, but deserve a great big pat on the back for doing anyway. It's clear that Isenberg et al really care about keeping things working in this show, and I appreciate that.

On Sari, I'm of multiple minds. On the one hand, her transformation and subsequent battle sequence was totally sweet and awesome and dumped some delicious New Ideas into the series, but on the other hand, there's the whole 'Upgraded into a teenager' thing, which smacks of arbitrarily trying to 'age' the series when it was getting along fine already. Now, I'd normally not expect the series to deal with the ramifications of Sari going from nine-years old to sixteen in such a short time, but considering this premier already explored the ideas of the 'Good Guys' creating a living WMD, and showing the brutal lengths a Decepticon double agent would go to in desparation to cover his tracks, I can't completely write off the idea of them diving into the concepts of Sari's 'Cyber-Puberty', as it were. Which could itself be a good or bad thing.

As for Sari's origins, while they did kind of a bad job of telling the story, as far as what order they explained things in, the end result does more or less make sense, as far as what we're given. They say she's a technoorganic, which basically solves any issues from previous episodes that would have nullified the possibility of either option. Sari herself accepts the final explaination just a little too easily, but I'll roll with it given plot neccessity and Sari's age and general mindset. One thing though: why the hell did Prowl have to sneak around and spy on Sumdac's records? Couldn't he have just...asked to see them?

Prime's call to Sumdac had me laughing pretty hard.

The animation quality dipped rather suddenly after the commercial break between Headmaster arriving at the Burger Bot, and the fight actually getting under way, the most noticible point being that the detailed damage in Starscream's body suddenly disappeared.

Between the Headmaster fight, Sari's rampage, and Omega Supreme, Detroit took a serious beating in this one. The general lack of endangered civilians fleeing around during all the destruction just made it more surreal.

The whole plot-device-development with the transwarp device was, frankly, stupid. That a damaged, independent component could do what that did is more ridiculous than Blurr bouncing off planetoids, and the thing really only persisted through the full hour-and-a-half in order to give the Autobots an easy out at the end. I won’t even ask how Prime knew what to do with the thing, since he wasn’t there for Bulkhead and Bumblebee to have their painful ‘Eureka!’ moment.

I’m assuming the remaining Earthbound Decepticons (Lugnut, Blitzwing, Sunstorm, Ramjet, Megajet, Blackarachnia) are going to show up…later?

All my complaints and nitpicks aside (though there’ll be more as I think of them, I can assure you), I really did love this premier. It might be my favorite ‘episode’ of TFA to date, honestly. Of course, if it’s setting the precedent for the rest of S3, I might be speaking too soon.

[donosaur]

haha! I just noticed that Sumdac's hairstreak is from getting shocked by the protoform! ORIGINS

[Gomess]

Oh yeah, like when Rogue absorbed Magneto's white hair and... echhh.

Yeah, I was disappointed with Rodimus for *that* reason.

I'm almost glad Roger C. Carmel wasn't revived to play Cyclonus. Almost!

...Man, I only just noticed, Detroit gets ALL f*cked up in this premiere, doesn't it? There's not even any civilians! Fanzone turns up, and doesn't *say* anything. Weird.

And yeah, seriously, toooo muuuch goooiing onnnnn. It's ok to leave SOME loose ends hanging. Any hope I had for the Screamclones developing individually is pretty much gone...

But Blurr running across the galaxy was awesome, and I'd like to see Blackout and Lugnut interact so I know they're not the same frickin' cypher of a character.

Anyone else find it weird that teen!Sari has arbitrarily shorter pigtails?

[onslaught86]

Loooots of stuff went on there. A good chunk of it was nifty, too, it seems they're trying to properly amp up the pace from the first two seasons' episodes where Nothing Much Happened. Even if Sari's age jump seemed a bit blatant.

I'll have more thoughts after I rewatch it, but for now, here's a tidbit: Blurr's demise at Shockwave's hand has GOT to be a nod to Shockwave's death in TFTM. Y'know, the one they didn't finish, where he was crushed between walls when Unicron smushed Cybertron some.

[Dominic]

Just remember, use spoiler-code.

Man, I have heard so much good stuff about this episode.

Speaking of Omega Supreme, I feel for the guy, but he's an idiot. I mean, I know the idea was that he was supposed to have Ratchet around him, guiding him all the time, but still. On his relationship with Ratchet however, good catch by the writers in sneaking that in the explain why a lowly repair crew was in possesssion of the most destructive Autobot weapon ever constructed in the first place.

A friend of mine gave me some of this over the phone. Could you explain this a bit more though?

But Blurr running across the galaxy was awesome, and I'd like to see Blackout and Lugnut interact so I know they're not the same frickin' cypher of a character.

I think that Blackout is supposed to be more of a mad-dog variant of Lugnut.


From what I heard,

Spoiler

Blurr's death was in a "standard bad guy trap", but the trap actually worked.

Part of me cannot help but root for the Decepticons in this series, if only because the Autobots are so stupid. I am not one of those "teh bad gieyes am to kewlerz" types, but Magnus and co are so inept that they *deserve* to lose.

Dom
-really wishes the show *looked* better.

[BWprowl]

Speaking of Omega Supreme, I feel for the guy, but he's an idiot. I mean, I know the idea was that he was supposed to have Ratchet around him, guiding him all the time, but still. On his relationship with Ratchet however, good catch by the writers in sneaking that in the explain why a lowly repair crew was in possesssion of the most destructive Autobot weapon ever constructed in the first place.

A friend of mine gave me some of this over the phone. Could you explain this a bit more though?

Well basically, Omega Supreme was deliberately given simpler processing abilities, to keep him in check on account of his ridiculous Powah. But this meant that he would need a 'Mentor Autobot' who could access his functions and point him in the right direction. Since Arcee passed the access codes on to him, that 'Mentor Autobot' was Ratchet. After a whole lot of apparently brutal destruction, Ratchet eventually put Omega into the deep stasis he was in at the beginning of the series. So, it only makes sense that Omega-as-a-ship would be assigned to whatever crew Ratchet was part of, so if he woke up, the one guy who could help him figure out what to do would be right there.

Anyone else find it weird that teen!Sari has arbitrarily shorter pigtails?

Maybe they'll grow back overnight?

I have a bet with myself about how long it'll take before people start bitching about how they turned the show into 'My Life as a Teenage Robot'.