[Prime] So Which Are The "Prime" Episodes Then?

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inflatable dalek
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[Prime] So Which Are The "Prime" Episodes Then?

Post by inflatable dalek »

So, with the British comic now officially having relaunched as Transformers: Prime (a slightly bonkers looking move considering the failure of their Animated title and the fact that more potential buyers are going to be seeing the DOTM DVD in the next few months than will see Prime on a cable channel) I'm going to need to actually watch some properly to get a feel of it before reviewing the comic.

So, I'm going to be looking into getting hold of the opening mini series, but as a very busy man with an awesomely amazing life (well, I've still got 23 episodes of The Presuaders! and all of Star Trek to watch on Blu Ray) I won't have time to sit down and watch the whole season till after Christmas, so what would you good people say are the most essential/best five or six episodes after the pilot? Ones that give a good feeling for all the characters and set up, and are pretty decent in their own right?
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Post by Blackjack »

The first five-parter, then I think 'Speed Metal', 'Convoy', 'Predatory', 'Partners', and the four parter 'one shall fall/rise', if you want to get a quick feel of the series. The four episodes I chose each give some of the slightly-campy-yet-realistic feel of the series which is basically a cross between G1 and the Movieverse.

'Sick Mind' and 'Out of his head' are plot-relevant, but if you are in such a hurry...
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Post by Knightdramon »

Watch the entire series when you get the chance. While each episode is more or less self-contained, the build-up for all characters involved really pays off if you watch the series properly.
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Post by Blackjack »

^ What Knightdramon said.

It's really a great series as a whole. I recommend watching every single episode.
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Post by inflatable dalek »

As fun as the show as a whole seems to be, as said, watching the entire series isn't an option for the immediate future when at least the first couple of Prime comic reviews will (theoretically anyway, go me and my awesome slowness) need to be done.
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Post by Cliffjumper »

It's all pretty good, none of this "the first three seasons are shit, yes, but you should have seen how great it would have been if it hadn't been cancelled".

The five-parter gives you a grounding in the universe. I'm crap with episode names, but the One With Wheeljack is awesome because of the "G1 Wheeljack? Who was he? **** him, **** him right in the ear" attitude; the one with the sort-of Blackarachnia is a great Arcee episode (and Arcee is great in this series), Speed Metal (for showing that this series, like Bay, knows conservation of Prime = win), the Scraplets one is deeply obvious but hilariously funny.

But yeh, watch in order for the win, so watch the five-parter, then the next five-six episodes. It's the best way to appreciate the titanium-strong cast - there's none of this "sure, the Autobots are all twats but after two seasons you're numb to it", the characters are rock-solid all the way through. Fowler's awesome, Soundwave's awesome, hell, even Starscream's awesome.
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Post by Blackjack »

Lord Starscream.

LOOOOOOOOORD Starscream!

RE: Animated, I've been rewatching the series and now I see why Cliffy dislikes it so much. Especially the first season. The humans good and bad, and Bumblebee in particular. I didn't notice it at my first watching, probably because I was so excited about a new cartoon series that was actually good (after a G1 bing, everything seems good). It's still great, albeit with annoying characters. But now, well, I don't hate it but it's lost that 'awesome' feel in my head. :(
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Post by Skyquake87 »

What blackjack said,really.i'm not completely sold on prime myself.optimus in particular is very weakly characterised,being little more than a talking fortune cookie.the generally excellent work in rehabilitating starscream from his screechy cowardly g1 persona is all undone towards the end of the series (i have yet to watch the concluding episodes though) and aside from jack,the humans are largely irritating,especially miko whom in the last starring episode she got nearly got ironhide killed,cost the autobots a major strategic advantage and loses a load of important data ... And gets away with a congratulations from optimus thus learning nothing and giving her further licence to act like a complete arse.that episode made me so angry!the rest of prime is pretty forgetable standard action cartoon fare thats been done hundreds of times before.perhaps i'd like it more if it didn't take itself so seriously.
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Post by Blackjack »

Skyquake87 wrote:What blackjack said,really
Eh what? Me? I think Prime is still the best Transformers cartoon out there with the possible exception of Beast Wars. That negative bit was directed towards Animated, and even that is just an acknowledgement that it's not so good in retrospect.

Defending Prime, now...

The humans are all charming with the exception of Miko when she's being an ass.

Starscream is amazing, and he keeps up the characterisation beautifully towards the end. What undone?

Optimus Prime is like a wonderful hybrid of his G1 and Movieverse selves.

Bulkhead, not Ironhide.

Miko learns from her mistake and at the very least manages to save the day by restoring Bulkhead to his normal state, so while she's an irritant at least she's a helpful little irritant.

The rest of Prime is a wonderful, charming series which, while it might have been done lots of times before, outdoes all the rest by its charm, its realistic tone and spectacular action scenes.
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Post by Skyquake87 »

I was referreing to your first post and the best eps to get a feel for the show. Sorry, freudian slip, bulkhead/ ironhide! d'oh!

See, I really don't think Miko will have learnt anything from that debacle...because no one tells her that her actions - however well intentioned (if you can call them that - she mainly acts of selfish self interest and the fear of missing out, even if its wildly inappropriate for her to go along) - are out of line, in that episode in particular which is the one occasion where you thought a sensible person might take her to one side and tell her to knock that sh*t off.

The Starscream thing just bugged me because we have scores of episodes with him sneaking about and making good his move to command the Decepticons and generally being a whily and interesting character and then - bam- Megatron's back, so rather than playing a smarter move and have him continue to operate against Megatron whilst maintaining and outward sheen of loyalty, we just get the horrible G1 archetype creeping in where Starscream falls to his knees and begs for mercy and turns into this horrible, hand wringing groveller. Ugh. It just dimished him, particularly when he's a much more engaging leader figure than the brutish megatron.

Optimus really isn't much of anything. His solitary moment of us getting to know and understand him comes in the Ratchet ep where he's testing the synthetic energon and calls Optimus on the general failure of the Autobot's military campaign (and rightly so, if the Autobot forces are as decimated as ratchet makes out) and there's this moment where you think Optimus is going to respond in kind, but he sees beyond the moment and reacts calmly. That was awesome, but we had to wait through twenty episodes of "Confucious Say" bumwash spouting from Optimus' unsettling noseless face. Optimus shouldn't be distant and remote, and given the situation of the Autobots on Earth, what exactly is Prime planning? How wil they launch an effective counterstrike? Are they working towards something?

On the positive side, Arcee and Knock Out (is it, the magenta muscle car on the decepticon side) are both great and Agent Fowler is fun. The animation is very slick, but I'm puzzled if why this is a more 'grown up' Transformers cartoon, they've given everyone Animated style cartoon faces? It's not a bad look, but it does seem a slightly odd mix to have these complex, detailed machines with a massive smiley face plonked on their shoulders.

The other thing I find with Prime is that it very much feels like the sum of its parts in so much that it seems to be a grab bag of successful elements from other Transformers cartoons. In the long run, i can see it developing into something great, but for right now, its too forgetable to make much impact and i really hope the rumours about Unicron showing up in Season 2 are unfounded.I'd prefer to learn more about these Transformers and their situation before we get into Gods and monsters territory again.
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Post by Terome »

Nobody's mentioned 'Rock Bottom' here, I'd say it's the stand-out for the season.

The characterisation is good throughout and there are little gems in every episode, but I'd disagree that it's necessary to watch every episode. If you're not watching week-by-week, I imagine the action scenes in particular would become very repetitive.
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Post by Cliffjumper »

Bulkhead/Miko focus can get a bit heavy too... Though I'm up to episode 21 now and the quality's very solid. Miko can be irritating at times, but I think it's intentional - she's meant to be a bit much. While I expected the conservation of Optimus, that Bumblebee's generally barely in it is quite surprising - I'm guessing it's hard to get bleeping Bumblebee to work without the ILM model. Optimus is being intentionally kept out of the way to add weight to when he does appear I suspect - "Speed Metal" being a case in point. And I love that approach - the character isn't diminished by taking 22 minutes to get it right each week.

"Partners" has been one of the stand-outs for me, though anything with Knock-Out and Breakdown is good too - they're incredibly three-dimensional for scratch-built Decepticons. I'm just praying we don't have a cast explosion in Season 2 when the toyline's picking up pace, and end up with 357 Autobots who look just like Bumblebee in different colours (yeh, LOL, body-types, post-modern, rim Wyatt, whatever).

Megatron's going surprisingly well too.
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Post by Terome »

Megatron's going surprisingly well too.
Yeah, I have to agree with that. I didn't think much of him in Darkness Rising, but by the end of the season
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he really gives off the impression of being a guy kind of worn down to this tiny nub and going steadily insane because of it. There's even something a little bit sweet about his behaviour right at the end of the season.
anything with Knock-Out and Breakdown is good too,
Definitely. The voice-acting kicks the characterisation all the way to the goal, doesn't it?

I'm not sure if a cast explosion is something to fear right now - Hasbro seem to have an almost eerily philosophical approach to the toys this time round. That might not last, especially if a fourth movie never materialises, but I can't imagine many more characters will be added to the core cast - maybe two for each faction? The approach of having your Skyquakes and Wheeljacks who show up as contrasts and compares to the main characters and then bow out seems to be built in to the show's DNA.
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Post by Cliffjumper »

Yeh - I'm hoping it's a sort-of BW thing where it just won't be commercially viable to add 20 new characters for Season 2 even if the toyline beings to get bigger - if they want to, they can still do their usual Thundercracker/Skywarp/Sunstorm/one of the random guys from MTMTE repaint shit, but there's no need to forcefully shoehorn them into the show. I'm hoping that Hasbro have learnt that it's better to have 20 toys out that everyone wants than 50 not many people want - the various Classics lines and DotM seem to be leaning this way; without figures it's hard to work anything out, but I reckon they got their fingers burnt a little with some of the weaker RotF assortments - the non-film characters really seem to have clogged up shelves over here to the extent that you can probably still find all the Scouts at retail. From a film released two-and-a-half years ago.

The thing I like about Knock-Down is that we haven't really had a Decepticon done properly like that before. They're either ambitious plotters or loyal morons; he's got a bit more zip to him, especially when you consider he's brand new (compared to, say, Starscream, who's just got some of the old problems shaved off).
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Post by Blackjack »

The finale three-parter is surprisingly good, despite the fact that it has Unicron and the Thirteen in it. I like how it basically pisses over all of what Fun Publications has done, basically making a much more interesting backstory in two minutes that Fun Publications took four years to even lay the foundations of.

Megatron is also pretty well-executed in my opinion, although he does chew the scenery quite a bit.

I do recommend watching the finale.
Cliffjumper wrote:Bulkhead/Miko focus can get a bit heavy too... Though I'm up to episode 21 now and the quality's very solid. Miko can be irritating at times, but I think it's intentional - she's meant to be a bit much.
She's kind of unbearable in some of the later episodes, though... although it's the kind of unbearable you expect from an overenthusiastic little sister.
Optimus is being intentionally kept out of the way to add weight to when he does appear I suspect - "Speed Metal" being a case in point. And I love that approach - the character isn't diminished by taking 22 minutes to get it right each week.
This. As I said before, Optimus Prime being kept out of the way gives more 'oomph' when he finally enters the fray, making him more of a hero instead of a generic leader like he was in G1 or Armada. And frankly, it's pretty effective.
Terome wrote:I'm not sure if a cast explosion is something to fear right now - Hasbro seem to have an almost eerily philosophical approach to the toys this time round. That might not last, especially if a fourth movie never materialises, but I can't imagine many more characters will be added to the core cast - maybe two for each faction? The approach of having your Skyquakes and Wheeljacks who show up as contrasts and compares to the main characters and then bow out seems to be built in to the show's DNA.
Cliffjumper wrote:Yeh - I'm hoping it's a sort-of BW thing where it just won't be commercially viable to add 20 new characters for Season 2 even if the toyline beings to get bigger - if they want to, they can still do their usual Thundercracker/Skywarp/Sunstorm/one of the random guys from MTMTE repaint shit, but there's no need to forcefully shoehorn them into the show. I'm hoping that Hasbro have learnt that it's better to have 20 toys out that everyone wants than 50 not many people want - the various Classics lines and DotM seem to be leaning this way.
Yeah, I don't see cast explosions coming any time soon, especially with the, well, difficulties in creating CG models and stuff like that. Hasbro seems to be more keen on making multiple toys of the same character (Cliffjumper, so far, has two unique Deluxe class molds if Seibertron is to be believed) instead if shoehorning six characters per episode like in the original cartoon.

I think Hasbro is slowly starting to realise this, with the toylines for Animated and the Movieverse being dictated by the shows instead of vice versa. And while Animated later went overboard with random obscure generics in the third season (which, frankly, I'm grateful that none of them did much but stand in the background for two seconds) it was more the result of the creators going crazy instead of a mad toyline.
The thing I like about Knock-Down is that we haven't really had a Decepticon done properly like that before. They're either ambitious plotters or loyal morons; he's got a bit more zip to him, especially when you consider he's brand new (compared to, say, Starscream, who's just got some of the old problems shaved off).
Knock Out, not Knock Down.

I like Knock Out as well. Nearly all cartoon Decepticons basically fall into three categories: dumb thugs, ambitious Starscream plotters, or just crazy attack dogs. And the odd defector like Dinobot. People like Knock Out, well, a sadistic, smarmy version of Tracks whose profession is a doctor... I do like Knock Out, he steals the show in every scene he is in.

Airachnid, on the other hand, is slowly dissolving from an almost-interesting rival to Arcee into basically G1 Starscream.
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Post by Knightdramon »

If the rumours are true about season 2, we will see a cast explosion in the fray. 2-3 characters per side are going to be introduced, *some* with new human allies.

Autobot rumours are of a small sports car and a truck. Quite generic, but will probably come to fruition in the coming months.

Cliffjumper does have two unique moulds, yes. One is in the preview wave [and will be redeco-ed into a zombie version] while the other is in the mainline and is much more show accurate.

Season 2 will not air by the end of this month, sadly, but around late January or February 2012. Not sure if it is production delays, HUB delays or if Hasbro, for once since 2005, wants to have a damn toyline running alongside a damn show.
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Post by inflatable dalek »

So, any word on if the Blu Ray season one set is going to be multi-region?
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Post by inflatable dalek »

Watched the opening two episodes (well, what I'm guessing are, it's the edited together "TV Movie" version, but I'm leaning towards Megatron stabbing himself with dark energon being the cliffhanger rather than Arcee going to sleep for the night in a garage).

I'd seen the first before but it stood up a bit better this time, all good fun and I want a Cliffjumper toy now, even though the ones at work are apparently less good than the first encounter one. And dead God, how did they get away with the zombie bit in a kids show? That's pretty much 100% nightmare fuel there.

Main weak bits:

It can't seem to decide at this point if Arcee is just going to be treated as an Autobot or if she's going to be the stock weaker female character. Lots of "Look at me, I'm a bad ass!" moments but the first action scene for Bumblebee and Bulkhead is still rescuing her, and she seems generally to get the more emotional and vulnerable moments.

Agent Fowler, is he going to do his Mr. Belding thing every episode? Wandering in, telling everyone to behave before buggering off?
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Post by Cliffjumper »

Nope - Fowler's pretty cool, and well-used across the season. IIRC none of the human characters are ever-present.

Arcee does suffer a little on some occasions, but it's largely because she is the smallest and weakest of the Autobots. But it's all relative and there's very little that's actually genuinely sexist - if Arcee and Bumblebee had their parts switched no-one would read much into the actions. By default she's probably the most emotional, but that's because Prime's aloof, Ratchet lives in a trashcan, Bee can't speak and Bulkhead's about two scenes behind everyone else.
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Post by inflatable dalek »

Nice (though they could perhaps have subverted expectations a bit by having the girl not be the small one).

I'm impressed with Welker's performance, he doesn't really sound anything like either G1 or Galvatron, a nice gravely pissed off at the world voice. Starscream was fine as well even if he seemed to fade into the background a bit after the killer (ho ho) intro. Soundwave seems to be Evil Movie Bumblebee.

Oh, and Jeffrey Combs. All that needs to be said.
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