My Review of Transformers: Prime

My TV Show Rating Score:

5/5: It is an awesome show!
4.5/5: it is a great show albeit not perfect
4/5: It’s a good show with minor flaws
3/5: It’s overall okay/guilty pleasure
2/5: It’s bad but not awful
1/5: Look, up in the sky! It’s super bad!
0/5: MY EYEEEESSS!!!

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Greetings, everyone! This is Mr. J back with another TV show review for today! This evening, I will be reviewing Transformers: Prime which ran from 2010 to 2013. This is one of my all-time favorite transformers shows alongside Transformers Animated. Even though Animated is my number one favorite TF show, Transformers: Prime is definitely up in my top 10 favorite cartoon shows of all time.

It has great character writing, storytelling, amazing computer animation, fantastic character arcs, and interesting world-building. I can understand why many people within the transformers fandom highly regard this series as the best TF show ever made although it has a lot of flaws that not many people notice.

You all know how this goes: the Autobots wage their battle to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons. The heroic Optimus Prime and the tyrannical Megatron fight to the death with the fate of Earth hanging in the balance.

First off, this is one of the best CG animation I’ve ever seen in a 3D cartoon; seriously, the colorful background, the human character models, and most of the designs look top-notch! I bet it cost Hasbro so much money to make these episodes considering all the animation and the budget that went into this show. Thus, it looks so magnificent and eye-catching as a result.

Almost every character had a well-written character arc and development. This show actually makes the characters relatable and understandable so we, the audience, can connect with them. For example, Arcee suffered a traumatic experience in watching her close partner (Tailgate) brutally die at the claws of Arachnid and years later lost Cliffjumper to Starscream. It filled her with rage, and she wanted to exact vengeance on them—mostly Arachnid.

However, she would soon learn that revenge does nothing to heal her pain, and she had to learn from her painful experience. Throughout the show, she grew into a much stronger Autobot by controlling her emotions and being a source of help to others. Sumalee Montano did an amazing job voicing her.

I don’t need to empathize Peter Cullen’s iconic voice acting as Optimus. The man is legendary in everything he does. As for Frank Welker, he does a much better vocal performance as Megatron. This should be his definitive voice for Megs going forward because he actually sounds like a ruthless gladiator with a dark presence that demands respect. He doesn’t sound like he has throat cancer like back in G1; he sounds threatening for once!

What I love the most about this show is that they combined the Bayverse aspect (detailed designs, overarching subplots, and explosions) and the G1 aspect (episodic adventures, and lively characterization). Together, it becomes more balanced in tone and humor. Only this time, it has zero cheesiness and has a much more mature setting.

The action scenes are fun to watch and are wonderfully animated. Not to mention it has such an epic soundtrack, if I may add.

Nonetheless, it has some irritating issues I just cannot stand. Optimus is great when it comes to his leadership abilities, strength of character, and heroism, but he sucks when it comes to his personality. He’s so boring due to his lack of humor, stone-faced demeanor, and always being serious. I know some people find that scene between him and Jack funny, but it just shows how he’s no fun to be around.

Bumblebee being mute was unnecessary because Michael Bay has already done that for the movies.
Do we really need this again for this show? Also, a lot of episodes in season 2 kept focusing on looking for a different artifact; it became repetitive and tiresome later on. Starscream has the worst design out of everyone, and he became the biggest bitch the universe has ever witnessed. Yeah, he had an interesting character arc in the show, but I was so annoyed he became everyone’s bitch until the end. I’m sorry, but only Megatron gets to screw him. That’s it. But Steve Blum was awesome though.

Some of my favorite characters are Dreadwing, Arcee, Megatron, Knockout, Arachnid, and Ratchet. Jack is a generic teenager who’s nowhere as screamy as Sam Wickwicky (I’m being unironic btw), Miko is unnecessarily annoying, and Raf is a typical computer geek who somehow can understand ‘Bee. Yeah, the humans in the show suck…except June Darby and Agent Fowler. They were actually cool. RIP Markie Post. Silas is an underrated villain on the other hand; I really wish he had more episodes.

Overall, this show has contributed so much to the franchise that it set the bar high up that no other series could ever reach. So while it has a lot of flaws, the positives outweigh the negatives. In that case, it gets a 4.5/5: PRIMED FOR GLORY!

Peace!

Comments

[Darth Wrex]

👍

[nightshroud96]

Soundwave and Shockwave were so good here as well.

[Stalin with Da Spoon]

This series also happens to have my favorite versions of Soundwave and Shockwave, so it's even better for me.

[A Man Undercover]

Coming from a guy who saw this program not too long ago, I definitely agree that it was awesome.

One of the main flaws I remembered noting was the whole “Earth turning out to be Unicron” thing. For some reason, the idea of an ancient Transformer becoming a non-robot-ruled planet over time didn’t make a lot of sense to me. Other than that, I had wished that the show team did more with Airachnid after her sudden return in “Thirst”.

[TheClownPrinceofCrime]

5724567
I didn’t like that Unicron bit either. I much prefer him being a planet-consuming entity.

[A Man Undercover]

5724568
Yay. Not to mention Unicron himself was kinda one of my least favorite characters from the show, mainly because he seemed…poorly characterized, so to speak.

[MLPFollower]

Speaking of flaws, it turns out that there were a lot of problems during production, mostly because of the studios and budget not allowing the team to carry out their full vision of Transformers Prime.

All of it is composed here:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Trivia/TransformersPrime

EDIT: here’s the full list if you feel like scrolling down TV-Tropes is a pain.

• Troubled Production. as seen herestatic.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/external_link.gif , the show went through many problems, mostly because of miscommunication with the other branches of the Aligned continuity and a late change in director with a different idea for the third season.

  • Hasbro originally wanted the show to be a follow up to the Transformers: War for Cybertron video game series but the production team didn't want to have to work off other writers' stories. Hasbro lacked creative control over the show so the production team did mostly what they wanted but included token references that tied it into the Aligned continuity. The Binder of Revelation, the $250,000 series bible that Hasbro put together for the show was ignored for almost the entirety of its run.
  • Hasbro wanted IDW to reboot their main Transformers comic and replace it with one based around the show. IDW, heavily invested in their established series, refused and instead just started incorporating characters and designs from Prime and other parts of the Aligned continuity into the existing comic but never gave it its own devoted book to advertise the television series. Similarly, the failure to launch Transformers Universe, the MMO based off of Prime, also ruined a lot of the show's long term potential.
  • The show was constantly going over budget, averaging an estimated $1.6 million an episode over the course of 65 episodes and the 3 part finale movie, and the Hub's viewership was so low it was hard to justify the cost.
  • The original plan for Season 3 was for it to center around a Cybertronian pirate invasion. A novel was released to set up the premise and a figure of pirate captain Thundertron was produced. However, during production a new director came in and scrapped the pirate storyline at the last minute, demanding the season be centered around beasts instead. There was no time to properly implement the sudden plot change, which is why the Predacons only play a secondary role in Beast Hunters. This angered both Hasbro and the production team as not only did they have to throw out their original plans, by the time Hasbro made a new line of Predacon toys it was too late to put most of them in the show.

• What Could Have Been:

  • Bulkhead was originally planned to be Ironhide, but the creators realized that they were essentially creating a new version of Animated Bulkhead, so they put him in the show instead. However, the featurette of the Season 1 set states that Ironhide's death in Dark of the Moon was what made the crew replace him with Bulkhead.
  • According to a featurette of the Season 1 set, Lugnut was considered to be join the Decepticon ranks, but was ruled out because the makers felt they had too many aircraft on the 'Con's side and he was replaced with Breakdown.
  • Smokescreen was going to be the sixth Autobot at the beginning of the show and he would then get killed by Megatron during the season finale. He was replaced by Cliffjumper and his death was moved to the first episode.
  • Part of the reason Season 2 has so many storylines is that the writers realized that standalone episodes would be hard to maintain due to the very abundant continuity, so they rushed through the storyline ideas that they had. It makes one wonder what could have happened had they gone through the three years as planned.
  • Seaspray was going to appear in season 3, having survived his run-in with Dreadwing. He would have had a personality similar to Quint from Jaws.
  • Grimlock was also planned to appear in the series. It's likely, had he made an appearance in the series, that he would have borrowed from his Fall of Cybertron design or been redesigned. The Dinobots collectively are actually referenced by Bulkhead and Miko in Project Predacon, so take that as you will.
  • Michael Bell, who voiced many G1 characters including Prowl, Sideswipe, and Swoop, auditioned for Ratchet and Fowler.
  • Skyrazor was originally planned to be "Stormrazor".
  • The Beast Hunters guidebook originally identified Vertebreak as "Scourge", and showed him with a remolded beast-mode head. Ultimately, this was dropped, and when Hasbro released said guide book on their facebook page, the name was replaced with Vertebreak's and the artwork reflected his status as a redeco of Lazerback.
  • The whole Beast Hunters line was imposed at the last minute (see Troubled Productionabove), forcing the team to scrap their original plans for season 3 (apparently involving Maximals and Predacons and a "wild-west"-style exploration of the reborn Cybertronstatic.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/external_link.gif ).

  • Fowler's Unit:E was supposed to start a Massive Multiplayer Crossover between many Hasbro franchises, most of them obscure ^{For example} M.A.S.K., Micronauts, Centurions, Primordia, Jem, GIJoe, Stretch Armstrong, CandyLand..., as seen in the comic that came out at NYCC 2011static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/external_link.gif . (IDW Publishing has recently announced the launch of their own Shared Universe called Revolution, using their Transformers and G.I. Joe titles as the foundation.)

    • Rik Alvarez would also reveal thatstatic.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/external_link.gif Ratchet staying on Earth in “Deadlock” was going to be the gateway to the spin-off with Ratchet remaining in a central role.
  • The reason the toyline included the character Thundertron was because he was supposed to be in season 3, until the storyline was altered.
  • Breakdown was originally going to have a redemption plot that focused on him defecting to the Autobots (hence his unusually sympathetic characterization). However, they needed to cut a voice actor for budget purposes, so they killed off Breakdown,leading Knockout to take on the defector role later in the third season.
  • Unicron was going to enlist the help of Airachnid and her Insecticons during Predacons Rising, but they were cut out in the final film.
  • According to leaked production notes, Skyquake was originally going to be Skywarp. With this in mind, it's possible that Dreadwing was originally going to be Thundercracker, especially given that he shares Thundercracker's traditional blue color scheme and Noble Demon traits.
  • According to Mairghread Scottstatic.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/external_link.gif , there was a cut line in "Stronger, Faster" during Ratchet's "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Optimus about his supposed lack of action against Megatron, which would've implied Elita-Onedied during the war (ex. "Where's Elita now?"). This would've resulted in Optimus punchinghim. This was cut due to the writers not wanting Optimus to lose his cool and that this piece of backstory would've been irrelevant.
  • Starscream, Bulkhead and Wheeljack originally looked completely differentstatic.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/external_link.gif .

There is also the Wasted Potential:

• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: One of the key problems with this show's level of realism is that - as in real life - War Is Hell and soldiers can go down anti-climactically. The following characters can be considered to have unused potential.

  • Breakdown, Hardshell, and Dreadwing are the biggest examples.

    • There are those who think Cliffjumper, Skyquake, and Makeshift got royally screwed, as well. The deaths of the former two, at least, play into the development of some of the characters. Also, Makeshift was killed off because his Story-Breaker Power couldn't be utilized in this manner of show without Badass Decay.
  • Seaspray, a Wrecker acknowledged by Bulkhead and Wheeljack, had the potential to be a cool Adaptational Badass. Yet we only see ten seconds of his ship before Dreadwing blows it up — in a flashback. At least Tailgateshowed up onscreen.
  • MECH had a bridge dropped on it before they could have a proper climax to their storyline. Usually the toy company is responsible for such things, but they did produce the potentially toyetic Nemesis Prime and CYLAS.
  • Raf, partly as a result of him becoming out of being Demoted to Extra. While Jack got to become an honorary Prime, assist Smokescreen in assimilating to Earth, and grow as a leader and Miko got to become a Wrecker and master the Apex Armor, Raf was relegated to only being called on to solve computer problems. This despite the tantalizing mystery of how he understood Bumblebee, his rivalry with Soundwave, and that he was one of the few people Ratchet was willing to open up to. Admittedly, the writers said they didn't know what to do with him.
  • On a similar note, Arcee, her struggles with her past traumas, and her rivalry with Airachnid got a lot of focus in season one, but she becomes significantly less prominent in the other two seasons, even as her partner Jack continued to play an important role. By the end of the series, she's practically a background character who does almost nothing of note.
  • Vehicon troops and especially miners were given some amount of personality at times, but not one of them was ever named or focused upon in what could have been a Lower-Deck Episode giving insights on what is to be a lowly grunt in Megatron's army. This is even more poignant when the Insecticons, who were introduced much later, did get a Mook Lieutenant with two episodes centered around him.

• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:

  • The Orion Pax arc to some. The show was hyped up as revolving around the theme of what it means to be a Prime, and when Optimus lost his memories, fans predicted that the rest of the show would deal with Orion re-learning to be a strong leader and Prime. However, at the end of the arc, Orion regains his memories, and the arc has absolutely noramifications on Optimus' character.
  • The possibility of Starscream becoming an Autobot in "Partners".
  • The arc surrounding Bulkhead and his near-fatal injuries in Toxicity, mainly to those who expected him to die after the second mid-season climax.
  • By the end of "Thirst", Airachnid is transported to one of Cybertron's moons and is revealed to have been infected with vampirism. Nothing becomes of this.
  • The whole premise of the third season, Beast Hunters, where both Autobots and Decepticons worked on finding Predacon fossils and possibly bringing them back to life, led the viewer to believe that both Autobots and Decepticons would add more animal-based Transformers to their ranks, quite possibly including the Dinobots themselves. Mid-to-late season, Megatron decides to destroy all the Predacons in Shockwave's lab out of fear of Predaking seizing power one day, pretty much assuring the viewer will never see another animal-based Transformer on the show besides Predaking and making the third season's title "Beast Hunters" completely meaningless. While it is true that the movie Predacons Rising added Darksteel and Skylynx, in addition to focusing on a revived undead Predacon army, the series was practically over by then and the third season still didn't really live up to the "Beast" aspect of its name.
  • One of the reasons Breakdown's death is widely cited as one of, if not THE, low points of the show is that it resulted in multiple cases of this; his history/rivalry with Bulkhead went unexplained, his owing a favor to Starscream was never followed up on, his Anti-Villainous traits that hinted at a possible redemption arc ended up being superfluous, and his attractionto Airachnid was sunk in the most brutal way possible.
  • Bumblebee gets introduced as a capable Kid-Appeal Character eager to earn his stripes. He is an agile scout who in the late first season starts employing sneaky tactics, such as pretending to fall victim to the Immobilizer, as opposed to the usual gung-ho approach. He is foreshadowed to use a phase displacement device and later finds and even accidentally uses one. However, the phase shifter, along with the role of The Sneaky Guy, went to the newcomer Smokescreen, another agile young bot, and so did the arc of being Optimus Prime's would-be successor. Bumblebee instead was moved Out of Focus and wasn't developed much in terms of character arc or fighting style, right until the end.
  • Arcee and Airachnid's rivalry gets dropped after the first season and is completely forgotten about for the rest of the series. Airachnid's final appearance on the show doesn't even feature Arcee at all.

[Vakama95096]

I really like Arcee in this show. She had a really dark past during the war. She lost Tailgate, then she lost Cliffjumper. (Seriously, how many times did this guy die anyway?) So, she wanted to protect her human partner, Jack. I should also add that I really love her design in the show. This was probably the first and only time I had a crush on her. Seriously, she's really badass. I like this version of Arcee better than G1 Arcee.