#transformers review

Wonderful-Trans IDW Drift 💖

Overall:

My favorite terran is probably either Jawbreaker or Nightshade!

My favorite design is probably Elita-one's!

My favorite voices were Megatron's.

The music and sound production was beautiful

Most visuals were very beautiful

It included Grimlock so yippee

I'd give it a 9/10

So! I’ve finally put together my transformers prime review! I had half a draft a while back but it got deleted so that took a wind out, and then let’s sayyyyy occupied with current events

But now that things have leveled out and I have a slow work day - found what scraps of my former draft I had, reworked bits and typed a bunch of new stuff! So- hope you enjoy and find value in it!

I think most of my thoughts are packed in my transformers prime season 1 review, here - as most of what the show will have going for it rides off of that season, so i reely comend reading that to get an idea of my general thoughts on the show, its premise and lore, main characters, and ofc my thoughts on season 1. As I won’t be going over the basics again. Also, check my tags!

To begin! I will start with my critiques, issues, cons, etc - I like to pull the band aid off and end with the sweet. But know that I did like the show a lot, and these issues ought not to be taken as a hatred of the show to a dismissal of the creatives intent or talents

The short? I like transformers prime! The first season had me thinking it would be a 11/10 peak transformers - but , tbh, halfway through season 2 started to lose me. And season 3 has some great stuff but adds too much, rushed through them and the core characters are neglected as a result

Cons:

Mid season 2 was a turning point - the human characters started having less to do, characters and plot lines started getting axed , and core dynamics were neglected such as Optimus / Megatron and Megatron / Starscream, as well as new novel dynamics and rivalries

Basically I feel like season 2 fumbled a lot of the stuff brought over from 1, and just gave us back to back mafuffin quests with split rosters that really took out a lot of steam. For example - with season 1/2 , oh no, Optimus prime is taken by Megatron! He thinks he’s Orion pax! How far will he get taken in? What will we see of his and Megatron’s old dynamic resurfacing? What will the autobots do without a leader?

(Plus give us a flashback episode to Orion Pax and Megatronus…giving us Prime rendition of Kaon gladiator Megatornus would’ve been sick)

Who knows resolve it in 2 episodes. Or Megatron gets in bumbkebe’s head! How long will he go unnoticed? Will he influence bumble or take him over?

Where is that massive horde of revived cyberton terrorcons from opener five parter? Etc

As a human fan - I’m glad with the stuff we got earlier in the show with the humans and Fowler was great throughout, but was bummed when they largely had nothing to do near the end

I think it was a big misstep to go from such a major peak in season 1 with unicron reveal, that was never topped, to go on a maguffin hunt that largely felt like going through the motions and seperated the cast of characters

Pairing that with killing off promising plot lines like mech, and just not giving more downtime characterization to characters like Optimus , and the lack of a growing or wide roster with fleshed out dynamics just started to dwindle

Tho there were peaks, and I enjoyed smokescreens introduction and when we finally got some climaxes in there they were great! But by the time I finished season 2, I was bummed thinking about the potential plot lines with mech and breakdown we missed out on, and how we didn’t get followup on the human’ life plot lines or downtime characterization for Optimus

When season 3 started I was hoping it’d be a strong ending - and in some ways it was! Don’t get me wrong. And the new character additions were great. But felt like there was too much too late, and hard to balance - and with so many loose threads some were left dangling, and the final battle felt like a redo of a previous final battle climax

And for what it’s worth? I really didn’t care about bumblebee’s voice enough to feel invested when he was the one to beat Megatron. Maybe if they did more with Megatron in bumblebee’s head!

I think the Predacon stuff was cool and the predaking was a cool character and great to see Megatron immedialteu scrambling when he meets someone who he can’t instantly dominate. But thankfully we did have the movie to end things more gracefully - which, resolved some open plot lines, brought back Unicron and gave some proper character conclusions, but still had the dangling thread of Arachnia on the moon with terrorcons and could only do so much to save things

And then in general, character wise - just odd some of the stuff they did. They introduce new characters in season 1 (Wheeljack and Skyquake) for each side, but either bench them or kill them for now - then in season 2, you get Breakdown killed randomly when he still had more payoff you could do with bulkhead and mech. Then you eventually get some cool characters like smokescreen and Dreadwing, but both kinda have messy arcs - smokescreen having the not hot rod arc and stumbling near the end; and Dreadwing having this monumental betrayal of the decepticons … to go back to them and inmediatley be killed

Also the silent characters? Bumblebee I never connected to, soundwave I vibed with cuz he’s soundwave and always doing the most GOATed shit. Love his eventual one liner, but wish he had more like a dark evil ferb lol

I love our core cast but felt like they got neglected late on, their rivalries dwindled, and they didn’t have much to do and don’t have capstones late on

Ultra Magnus and Shcokwave were great inclusions - but wish they were brought in sooner. Would’ve loved things to be shifted down: Smokescreen and Dreadwing in season 1, keep breakdown til end of season 2, and have ultra and shcokwave in early and mid seaosn 2 respectively (can have ultra Magnus come in when Optimus is gone, during the void of leadership)

Optimus, while had the capacity to be my fav, never got there - as we never get to see a more downtime Optimus and his casual dynamics with the humans (despite entrusting Jack the key? Like why bro) and lacks the flaws of the paragon (I mean he goes full kill all decepticons for like 5 seconds but not built up or paid off in any meaningful way). Look, I don’t WANNA be a g1 snob, but Optimus g1 is still my fav - he’s got the paragon stuff, but also plays basketball, has fun and hangs out with the humans; but also chooses Cybertron over earth in ultimate doom, before eventually sacrificing himself in the movie

Prime Megatron is my fav megs tho!

Also - I’m a broken record, but gimme my combinersssssss - I thought prime would’ve been a great chance to have a little larger ensemble of fodder soldiers and flesh out some secondary combiners like The Ariel Bots and Combaticons would’ve been perfect

But it’s just so weird, it goes from an 11/10 and just fumbles so much potential and threads and ideas

But usual caveats - I know hasbro and production screwed a lot, and clearly these are very talented folks, but the end result is what it is and no hate no judgement against the writers and creatives

Before we get into the pros, here are things I would’ve probably tweaked if I got to wave a magic wand and not have to worry about production or making bad story desicions as a byproduct lol, who knows how it would’ve been in practice but these are tweaks i think in a universe similar to ours, could’ve been: basically shuffling around seasons and beats and adding some combiners

Changes

Things would be moved around. It’s wild that the biggest and coolest reveal of earth being unicorn, that massive threat, and the concept of dark energon is used and discarded in season 1 - for the subsequent seasons to largely chase macguffins

I’d move around the seasons that would provide its own shakeups - much of season 2 would be 1, 1 would be the final season and stuff with 3 split across 2 and 3.

Essentially -

- season 1 would be searching for the Iacon relics. Good maguffins to chase in start if show, introduce the fun powers early on and allows for character matchups and adventures. Smokescreen would be introduced at the end of season 1 teasing omega keys.

- Season 2 would be searching for the omega keys, and dealing with Mech, and introducing an expanded cast. Optimus has been taken with a wiped mind as Orion Pax (different reason, but easy enough) and they actually dive into that more. Ultra Magnus arrives when he’s gone, filling the power vaccum. He has some fodder to fill out the Autobot ranks - nameless (maybe one or two named) Arielbots. We have more human episodes, and deal with the middle of the Mech arc a lot better. At the end of the season things are dire - with the near cyber forming of earth, destruction of arielbots and Optimus MIA.

- Season 3 would use the cyber forming as a means to accidentally wake Unicron up, and you’d have the escalation of that plotline serve as the climax of the show. Also utilizes beats from the movie. Megatron betrays Unicron in the end and gains his power, to stand against a final battle of an Optimus 2.0 and Allies. Beats from the movie would be included, such as Galvatron and Megatron really learning to empathize with starscream’s torment

Now to go deeper and more specific, by certain beats:

ORION PAX

We spend multiple episodes with Orion Pax / Megatron, and we more thoroughly explore their history and dynamic, perhaps Megatron trying to steal the matrix.

We basically have the decoding stuff , but apply it to Omega Keys - and the hidden knowledge he Carrie’s from Alpha Trion.

Unified but leaderless, the Autobots are reeling after Optimus’s disappearance and unsure of what to do next. Ultra Magnus arrives with some fodder he gathers to counter the vehicons - a division of arielbots. They’ll be used to beef up the autobots in battles and get killed. Maybe one named Ariel bot!

Things are tense as Ultra Magnus attempts to seize authority, and we get an earlier display of the issues between Ultra Magnus and the wreckers. Hot Rod tries to play the peacemaker between them.

Megatron attempts to steal the matrix from Orion pax, and when he fails he attempts to corrupt him with dark energon.

Orion Pax struggles to fight back, and has to really harness his will - and through a. Cheesy but cool bit he regains his memory when he really dives deep and harnesses his inner goodness - warding off the dark energon and becoming prime again!

When Optimus returns, Ultra Magnus relinquishes command and we have the race for the omega keys - but then Fowler gives news that Mech has made an announcement, that it’s put out a recruitment call.

For the season at large, you’ll have the episodic adventures searching for Omega keys, character dynamics and you’ll have more human plot lines - each human character will have a B or C plot facing their life, as to flesh them out, paralllel the main plot and to flesh out Jasper ahead of its destruction.

MECH

Mech was underutilized in the show and felt like a waste of time. They had a strong beginning, and Silas’s fate was great - but between both them and Breakdown, was rushed and badly done.

I’d utilize Mech as the major antagonist of most season 2 - after Nemeis Prime, having scaled down and built bots on a massive scale for its soldiers to pilot. This allow them to be a third threat, antagonizing autobots and decepticons alike.

We get a sense of their human facing side - where Fowler reveals (through infiltration, assault, etc) that Mech is making power plays against the military , and get a brief conflict there on some sort of army base as we see in a human facing plot in Jasper that a propaganda campaign and conspiracy theories rising against bots are popping up that the kids need to deal with, Mech staring to build itself as a figure against bots.

Their climax is when they assault the decepticons and steal one of the omega keys to study it, to create a weapon that can destroy all the bots and allow them to take over as the dominant power on earth in their place. This is a near end of the season where you’d then have Starscream, Optimus, Cons and Mech each having a key.

Bulkhead and Breakdown team up for this - a mutual alliance, and building upon their past episode together. They hash things out more, and while Breakdown is resigned to being a decepticon, unwilling to change his life - he sacrifices himself to save Bulkhead and destroy Mech, settling the life debt.

But, despite the fierce damage and near total destruction of Mech, things are recovered - headmaster frames are given to Jack, Miko and RAF for them to be more directly involved in plots rather than being benched.

After this, reaching its end near the 2/3 point of season 2, we start turning away to face the rising climaxes of the bot stories

And Silas and few mech soldiers barely survive, recovering Breakdowns corpse and beginning what happens in the original timeline - the end of the season, after being ruined and driven mad - Silas kills the remaining Mech soldiers and tries to ally himself with Megatron, and every thing we normally see with Silas in season 2 happens.

Others:

Black Arachnia dies. Sorry, but she doesn’t play much of a role in s3 so she’d work better as a shocking stakes death paired with character arc finale than being wasted in a jar.

Dreadwing learns that starscream killed his brother, and after everything that happens up to his betrayal like in the show, he turns against the deceptions and becomes a kinda lawful neutral figure through season 3 before going his own way before teaming up with similar scorned Predaking

Season 3

Basically, we have a fusion of s3 and s1 - predacon searching and cyber forming awakens Unicron, who begins to influence Megatron - which at the height of his power is concerning his Allie’s that he might fumble victory.

We get a lot of similar beats, including Predacon stuff and the subsequent betrayal.

At this point, we’ve spent time with Ultra Magnus for a bit and he’s worked out most of his Wreckers stuff so you can expirment pairing him with other characters .

Megatron is feeling more of Unicron’s influence, Dreadwing recruits and teams up with the Predaking over their mutual betrayal by Megatron to take him down.

Nearly defeating Megatron, Megatron takes his last reserve of dark energon - and this time he fully injects it - and Unicron offers him power, and Megatron accepts - and destroys both.

Now devoted to Unicron and his promise of power, Megatron ruffles his base by shifting their priorities exclusively to serving Unicron. Starscream grows increasingly anxious, and eventually betrays Megatron a final time -

Then you get much the same happen as in season 1 - including unicorn scolding Megatron, the betrayal, and Megatron teaming up with Optimus to destroy Unicron. When Unicron is defeated, Megatron takes the pure source of dark energon from his heart and absorbs it - becoming Galvatron, and wards off the autobots. Now that Unicron is dead, the power to wield dark energon is Galvatron’s , who commands his army as a hive mind.

Then we get a ramp up for a final battle, our autobots teaming with their human Allie’s,

Galvatron returns, and destroys Starscream, taking full and complete command of his troops and ship - with the mission to awake cybertorn with dark energon, and cyber form earth.

(NOTE: This piece was written before seeing the movie. I quite like the idea of Megatron growing out of evil after being tortured by Unicorn and seeing its climax, and apologizing to starscream but I feel like the larger story needs to be reworked for that)

So those are the beats I’d do! Obviously messy and not saying they’d be inherently better but some ideas I had! Might have to flesh it out more!

But, cons and revisions aside, here are the PRO PRO PROS

But - we can get into the sweet stuff, the pros!!

Pro

I think most of my pros can be found in season 1 review - as always I don’t want my critiques to overshadow what I love in any way.

I loved watching prime has had some of my favorite stuff in there and some great ideas and consistently great animation , design and direction!

I think the characters are well written and voiced, and there’s a lot of surprisingly stakes and depth to the stories - some particularly surpsing great ones is the absolute horror Silas goes through!

this Megatron is my favorite, a fusion of everything come before - voiced perfectly by the OG and given such perfect lines. I think this starscream gives my beloved g1 starscream a run for his money, but while he doesn’t quite get there in the end is super good and has such peak moments with Megatron

Arcee’s at her best here, taking some prior beats and gives her the cool and rough past from the comics with out going into the edgelord territory, and gives her a nuanced soft side. Bulkhead is great, transformed into a still funny, but more fleshed out character here

The setpieces are consistently great, the battles between Optimus and Megatron are prob the best I’ve seen so far here

The love brought over from the comics is so great to see as someone who fiended through most of it, and the original lore is interesting to see how it pairs with old and new lore

It takes a while, but the special gadgets add a fun and consistent element to fights and action scenes, reminiscent of g1 weird superpowers.

Some ideas I’d never considered are displayed here that I quite like as ideas - beit Megatron directly relating to and apologizing to Starscream because of his own suffering, or Unicron being earth!

I think the original characters are great - (as far as I know maybe they’re from an anime or toy) but Breakdown is cool while we have him, and Knockout is a consistent treat

And smokescreen would’ve been a perfect hot rod 😭

Despite my issues with the plotting - I do think generally went in really interesting and dramatic directions, with moments that had me engaged and pumped flaring up until the end.

As always I love my human characters too! Fowler is the GOAT

but yeah! Overall a super well made show with a lot of creativity and intent mixed in, a lot to love and I see why it’s people’s favorite transformers show

Final thoughts

All in all a show that’s super well made and has a lot of love and passion and has some of my favorite transformers elements on there, beit a specific characterization, piece of lore, story beat, etc. the first season is peak transformers , and rides well into mid season 2 where I feel it falters and loses steam

There are things throughout the show I find to be odd desicions on such a great foundation, and after it peaks in season 1 it never really has anything else to rise to that level or do with its characters

Tbh, I think Transformers Prime as Two seasons and a high produced movie would’ve been the best route to go, cut some fat, tighten it up add some things and shuffle things around and end with a high end banger

That being said, I don’t want it to seem like I don’t appreciate transformers prime - I really really like the show, and as far as transformers shows it’s one of the best! And it has some of my favorite elements - favorite Megatron for one

But unfortuantley as is the trend with transformers media - studio meddling, cut budgets, rushed deadlines, and toy blacklists hamstrung some of what it could’ve grown into - hopefully one day such a show can be made in peace

Transformers Prime is super great and a fun time and I’m glad I watched it! And definitley see why it’s one of the most formative transformers shows

I’ve since read more and watched more transformers - including the Netflix trilogy I should post about (overall liked it a lot! With caveats.) and the great transformers one

I’m looking forward to the next several months - where I’ll slowly begin the more modern transformers shows, and then get into the vast world of transformers anime and manga!

Transformers One isn’t just another addition to the franchise’s sprawling universe—it’s a quieter, more reflective exploration of identity, leadership, and the weight of choices made in moments of crisis. Directed by Josh Cooley, the film revisits the origins of two iconic characters, Optimus Prime and Megatron, before they became symbols of their respective factions. It’s a story of friendship…

Subtitle: My new favourite transformer

This movie contains slight cussing and suggestive jokes. Parental guidance may be advised but I don't think it's necessary.

******************************************************************

Now I want to start off by saying that to me this is not the best transformers in terms of action. But it does contain a decent amount of action.

That being said, this is one of my favourite transformers in existence. This movie's concept is a bit different from the others. The main plot of the movie is that the cybatronian war took place and Optimus orders that the Autobots regroup on earth. This has caused the Autobots to become stranded on the planet for the last 7 years. Now out of nowhere, a strange stone(forgot the name) that acts like a key to open portals anywhere in the universe appears. The Autobots see this as their only way of going home and they try to acquire the key from the museum with the help of a human named Noah.

The name of the enemies in this movie is not the Decepticons but rather The Terrorcons who serve Unicron and are trying to acquire the key so that it may aid Unicron in the consumption of more worlds.

Now as interesting as that sounds, I wouldn't really hype this movie in terms of action. Why I say this because I am a huge Optimus enthusiast and in this movie, Optimus is easily beaten and is cold towards humans. Sure the movie has an explanation for it but I don't really enjoy the way he was thrown around. That being said his attitude as well wasn't likeable. His design in the movie is also different from Bayverse much to my dislike.

I prefer the Bayverse designs of Optimus and bumble bee because of the details that go into their designs. In this movie, Optimus wasn't my type of character at all and it sort of made me upset. But the creators of the movie revived my heart with Mirage.

Mirage has to be one of the best characters that Transformers has ever created and is one of the main reasons I watched the movie. he has this sense of comedy that speaks out to me and was more of the comic relief of the movie. He easily became likeable and was more of the star of the movie than the other Autobots and topped even Noah in terms of likability according to me.

After being bombarded with Mirage edits on TikTok, I decided to watch the movie! I personally enjoyed the movie because it was a balance of comedy and action. I would also recommend this movie to my friends and family as well as strangers on the internet who love to laugh as well as watch good fight scenes.

Yes, this is where the Surprised Ratchet meme image comes from:

This episode has a lot going on including near-death of a human character on screen, body horror/a Frankenstein plot, and some genuinely unsettling scenes mostly made creepy due to the combination of some interesting dialogue/voice acting and typical G1 Quality. 

And Spike shoots Starscream in the ass mid-flight, which is fantastic. 

He also shoots his dad, which is less fantastic. 

Being a horror nerd, I love this episode, so here we go! 

Gonna put this below a cut because I’m taking a lot of screenshots here: