#art nerding

Personal opinion: (7/10)

He gets this rating purely because of how much I adore his design shdjsjwj. It's one of my top fav designs in TF media. OH and also that shit he does in season 3???!? I WILL NEVER GET OVER HOW FUCKING FUNNY THIS MOMENT IS and is wholly responsible for my Soundwave was an artist headcanon.

A silent creeper whose secretly a shitlord is really funny to me and I wanted more than we got honestly. Super dope how he's so good at his job he just... slowly walks over and fixes the problem without even looking.

He loses points for being a narc.

Design: (9/10)

Origami cryptid. Is this design rating purely because I love monster designs? I mean... I'm too biased to be 100% objective and probably added a point or two but I do genuinely think his design is just SOLID. I really dig the triangles and sharp angles of his design.

And I'd love to do a deeper look at his design when I have more energy like I've been wanting to do for a bunch of TFP characters including an analysis of his proportions. For now all I'll say is, I dig how unapologetically hard they lean into the weird. I love the bold direction characters have in TfP. Also they maintain strong silhouettes while maintaining detail and semi realism!

Micheal Bay, Disney, eat your heart out.

He and Starscream both have proportions that were messed with to make em look creepier and more alien. And I LOVE that HO BOI. It's a good way to add a sort of uncanny valley feel to enhance his creep factor.

I love all his lights and large flat planes. His movements, his posture, all are very well done to create that silent but dangerous image that speaks for itself. I could go on forever.

Also his little fingies are adorable. The facemask projections are brilliant.

Loses a point just cause I'd like a little more detail or armor on his arms. Maybe a little more integration of the shapes from the legs. It looks a little bare and some slight extra armour could really help believability and I'd spend less time wondering how his arm hasn't snapped off. And his big floppy feet kinda took away some of his creep factor for me cause my brain was just going 'eheheheh floppy feet' every shot he was walking which... THAT'S probably just a me issue tbh. These are P much personal opinion nitpicks so *shrug*

His cable tentacle things and Lazerbeak perching on his chest are such brilliant interpretations of his abilities and minicons being with him 24/7 from G1. Really made it all so seamless. Love love LOVE his design and how outside the box and brilliant his design is so he gets a point back for that.

You know what I dig as well? He kinda has a certain Motherboard aesthetic about him. He kinda looks like he's made of computer parts I really like that.

Narrative Handling: (4/10)

He played the creepy overseer role well. Really wish we coulda seen more tbh. For such a unique character we don't ever get any answers. And sure that maintains a sense of mystery but... Even just a shot or two of a subtle unimportant action to give us a read on the sorta personality he has and keep the audience intrigued. He fights Airachnid and easily knocks her back. He has abilities with the portals and tentacle dealies. It's super awesome but WHY?

I know the books have information but for all the questions tfp raises about him none are really answered in the context of the show itself in any satisfying way. So if you like Soundwave you may be feeling let down that such a powerful character didn't get more space to be explored. If you are neutral about Soundwave it was probably easy to forget he was there.

WHICH, IF YOURE GOING TO MAKE A WEIRD FUNKY MAN at least give us an episode or two letting us see him beyond the role he fills for Megatron yknow? I'm mostly salty cause he seems like he coulda been such a fun character had he been given the floor but because the show didn't have the time to expand on him (shakes fist at Hasbro) he ended up playing the role of convenient plot device man WHEN HE WAS SO CLOSE to being so much more than that. To be fair though Optimus gets a lot of convenient plot device moments that I am absolutely certain were Hasbro either rushing them or wanting more toy options.

Overall Soundwave, much like a lot of characters and plotlines in TfP, had a massive amount of story potential that never got realized. 😔

Other:

*sigh* this Soundwave is my fav Soundwave design. He's so creepy and I adore how freaky he is. But cyberverse Soundwave constantly running theme music is so fucking funny and he has my favourite Soundwave personality.