There really is something about how tfp is the main gateway drug into transformers but once you actually set foot into the fandom you realize it’s… mmmm not that great for one thing
You know what I have more to add to this actually because I have been thinking about it a lot. TFP is so good at hinting at things– hinting at a larger story, more lore, more plot, than it could ever hope to give. I think that’s why it’s so good at hooking people into the fandom. Throughout the whole show you sit there wanting more more more and the writers never give it to you. Team prime travels to space, they travel to Cybertron, and still everything manages to feel like it happens within a 100 mile radius outside some dude’s backyard in Nevada.
Transformers prime feels so grand because of it’s depth of backstory and lore thanks to its place in the aligned cont. but when I actually step back and look at the show itself I realize it’s very… small. I think one could attribute that to the fact that basically nothing happens for a whole season. It’s just a thinly veiled scavenger hunt (very thinly veiled). But the cast is also really small for a transformers show. Like really small. Hasbro absolutely adores cramming as many characters into their complicated toy ads as possible it is cocaine to them. And yet in tfp I can count all the robots on like… two hands? That’s insane. I know this is due to the whole quality over quantity approach but it still makes the show feel incredibly empty. Especially in comparison to other tf media.
I will admit I do appreciate how the emphasis on past-tense world building and overall emptiness fits with the themes of desperation/loss throughout the show. I think it’s what makes Ratchet and Optimus’ characters so powerful especially. You can feel the nostalgia and longing for their old life. For the time before the war. When they talk about how many bots they’ve lost, or how everyone just… scattered to the winds, you feel it.
TFP is such a weird combination of full and empty. Every character is built with dimension and intent but there are so few of them. Every episode has some weird info-dumping type lore but also ultimately goes nowhere. There is so much there and fans can see it. We can see all of it. Just hanging there. I think that is ultimately what makes tfp such a gateway into transformers despite it’s uh.. narrative downfalls. Because there is a lot there, but the writers sure as hell don’t build upon it, and there is no place like fandoms to fill in painfully obvious gaps.
