[Prime] Darkness Rising, Parts 1-5

[wolfbolt86]

Don't know if others saw it, but the frist two parts of Transformers Prime Drakness Rising came on yesterday. The graphics are way better than Cybertron. So far I like it. So far the series does not seem to be too kidish and mood seems to be like Beast Wars and Animated. Will state that the human gril will get on my nevers.

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Also, for all you "honest" folks out there, you can watch the first two episodes at The Hub's website.

- ziggy

http://www.hubworld.com/transformers/shows/prime/videos

[Sades]

Added the "spoiler tags" bit, just in case peeps want to know how the show is but don't want to know all the details right away.

I thought it was pretty fantastic. Nice melding of "Bay"ness and actual interesting plot.

[zigzagger]

Right, my initial thoughts...

Overall, I was impressed with the production value. Lovely CG models and top-notch voice casting. I particularly liked the choices for Starscream and Ratchet (yeah, yeah, I know, Welker and Cullen reprise their respective roles as Megatron and Optimus, too).

So far I like the Autobots, and this is probably the only continuity that Starscream didn't irritate me right off the bat.

SPOILER! (select to read)

So, uh, we won't be seeing much of Cliffjumper, then? What with a grim end like that - he was 'killed', what, within the first few minutes? Then zombie-fied, sliced in half, the top half of him kicked down a couple levels in that mine, and was presumably left behind when it went up. I take it The Rock was too expensive?

As for the token squishies. Mmmm, well...I thought Jack was tolerable. Given time, I think he'll grow on me. He's more or less the surrogate Sam Witwicky, so I get why he's there.

But, as for the other two...I thought Miko was insufferable. And Rafael, while he didn't do anything wrong per se, there was just something about him that rubbed me the wrong way. Honestly, I was expecting Ratchet to smack him upside the head. I dunno, I just didn't like him.

[Sades]

This is mostly copied/pasted from elsewhere...

SPOILER! (select to read)

How fricking weird is it to hear Dwayne Johnson's voice coming out of Cliffjumper at first?

Agreed on Rafael. Miko's a brat, but I can tolerate her. Rafael almost feels like a Mary Sue to me... understanding Bumblebee when he talks when no one else can, fixing the Autobot's computer... I don't like that little shit. So far.

"Buuuulkhead, I NEEDED that!"

So Megatron's ultimate weapon is going to be Fast Zombies. Huh. Correction... BECOME a Fast Zombie...? 0_o Yeah... that's a fabulous idea.

So if that thing still registered as Cliffjumper once it came back, does that mean that becoming an Evil Smurf (Gnap! Gnap!) isn't a permanent condition?

Also agreed on Starscream. And this is also the first time a version of Arcee hasn't made me dislike them immeadiately.

All in all, I'm impressed, entertained and somewhat delighted! It's kinda reminiscent of BW/BM stylistically and manages to bring in touches of the movie without being annoying. Now wish we got this "Hub" channel here.

[wolfbolt86]

SPOILER! (select to read)

Given how it seems that Megatron and the other cons have not used dark energon, is it apart of War for Cybertron? Seems strange that if it is to follow the game, None of the Transformers have heard or used the stuff. I think that Cilfjumper is coming back somehow.

Is it just the mini-series this week with the rest of the season to follow in a month or so?

[zigzagger]

SPOILER! (select to read)

So Megatron's ultimate weapon is going to be Fast Zombies. Huh. Correction... BECOME a Fast Zombie...? 0_o Yeah... that's a fabulous idea.

SPOILER! (select to read)

I think Starscream spoke for the audience when he cried "That's your plan?!" It's pretty much what I was thinking.

Not sure if my comment is spoiler-tag worthy, but what the heck.

Also agreed on Starscream. And this is also the first time a version of Arcee hasn't made me dislike them immeadiately.

For me, I think it's because he comes across as more patient and competent this time around, and not a complete twit. Plus, he hasn't stated his intentions just yet. I mean, yeah sure, at some point he's probably going to live up to the trope that's named after him*, I'm just hopeful this incarnation of Starscream will be a bit more...graceful about it, I guess.

(* - I really need to back off from tvtropes)

[Cliffjumper]

Just watched the first part. Not going to go all Animated fan and declare it the single greatest thing in the history of forever, but it's really not bad. The animation really works, as do the Bay-esque touches despite the cartoonier models.

Best of all, the characters aren't twats. I know it's early days, but after an episode of Animated I wanted every single Autobot to die, preferably in Saw/Rob Grant-esque fashions, so so far, so good on that score.

Bullet points:

SPOILER! (select to read)

• Shame about Cliffjumper, though aside from the cracking design his personality was a bit generic. Still, a nice promise of (slight) maturity from the series if we get a character stabbed to death in it - not as in I want some dreadful psychotic bloody series like some sort of Shortpacked! strawman, just that it might make for a bit of dramatic tension if there's half a chance of named characters dying. We'll have to wait and see whether it's a Ryu Jose-esque dramatic gambit, though.
• Oh my Christ, is Starscream actually competent here for the first time since, well, ever?
• Peter Cullen had really found another level, hasn't he? Well, aged anyway - it's not that I don't like G1 Prime's voice (I do!), but it just sounds that bit better aged a little. Prime in general is ****ing aces.
• Nice take on Soundwave from what we've seen.
• Arcee's off to a good start too - like ROTF, they've made the solid choice of making her obviously female (whatever your definition is), but treating her exactly the same as the other characters. It's like Transformers has finally caught up with the 20th century. And OMFG SADES, YOU ARE RIDING HER! ZOMG! Plus how angry is the front of her bike mode?
• Bulkhead's not a fat, useless, whiny, self-pitying, thick sack of crap. Thank **** for that. Loved the way the two drones bugged out as soon as he turned up, too.
• Loved the way it lifted some of the best basic concepts from the Movies - small team of Autobots, relatively isolated. If done right, there could be some good characterisation in this, especially as it doesn't seem to be particularly tied to any toyline. Let's hope they avoid the tired old likes of a Dinobot episode and so on.
• Aside from the opening "high beam" bit, there was a distinct lack of injoke twattery. I don't mind the odd reference, but bits of Animated felt like I had some shithead from the Waki sitting next to me, nudgng me with his elbow and going "Eh? Eh? Eh?". That said, the "Autonomous Robotic Organisms" bit with the like-for-like shot over Prime's shoulder was nice and subtle.
• In fact, there was a general lack of "we need to have a wisecrack every five seconds, regardless of situation or our ability to script wisecracks", which was very refreshing.
• Outstanding score. In fact, I'm struggling to think of a Western kids' cartoon that's ever sounded that good - no ****ing public domain keyboard dance shit, no variations on the theme tune, no randomly deployed stock music.
• The humans looked better than I, for one, expected. Just the right mix of realism and being cartoony. The buildings were a bit les impressive, with those weird windows and Dullsville USA being a bit too clean, which was a shame, as the rural landscapes were great. The buildings (and spooky empty streets) looked a bit like the 2007 game, and not in a good way.
• Jack's not as bad as I was expecting either - he's a bit Sam-lite and thus suffers from not having Lebeouf's feckless nerdy charm, but we've certainly had worse. Plus notice the way he doesn't have a crazy accent. I like him not having a crazy accent. Let's hope his dad doesn't turn out to be a Funny Indian. Raf (sp?) felt a bit more Cartoon Network, but wasn't much of a millstone. The whole human contact thing was handled fairly well considering it's always the hardest area of anythig Transformers to take seriously. Miko was a bit annoying (partly due to VA, I think), bit like the stupid bint off IDW, though I like the basic idea of someone who isn't "Giant friendly robots! RUN!" and is a bit more "Giant friendly robots! AWESOME!". All that said, the Autobot scenes were the better ones.
• Transformations and the action scenes in generally really came off well. The confidence of the direction was very nice, actually - this thing is blocked like it's a two-hour Bay epic.
• Was that Welker doing that weedy little Megatron voice at the end? Shit. that was about the only bit that didn't convince. Here's Megatron, he sounds pretty ordinary.

tl;dr I rather liked the first bit. Not flawless by any means, but respectable for a set-up episode and enjoyable, rather than irritating. Now, have me dinner then watch the second half.

[Cliffjumper]

Part 2 thoughts: -

SPOILER! (select to read)

• Wow, poor Cliffjumper. Not his day, is it?
• Ratchet's really great fun, the movie version with more scene time and without the OTT "grumpy doc" schtick of Animated. "Busy!"
• Nice setup with the government agency - a good point to address, though hopefully we won't have all of IDW's MIB shit to contend with. The blend of Bay and IDW's Neverending Furmanverse with a dash of Animated is actually very promising - thus far they've taken the good and left the bad.
• The Autobots ****ing kick arse. Awesome fight scene in the Energon mine.
• Especially Arcee - the bit where she spins that drone's head off = win.
• I like Raf. He's your standard child genius cartoon cheat, but he's not actually much of a dick about it, being generally pleasant and humble to everybody. That's a good call. Plus the human tech in the silo makes it that bit more convincing and stops Ratchet from looking like a tool.
• "And leave a note for your mum. She worries!" Really loving Arcee.
• Welker's settled down a bit, but I really wish someone else had the gig.

Very good. When's the next one?

[Cliffjumper]

Urgh. It's certainly better than GI Joe Renegades, with appears to be based on Rise of Cobra. So Ripcord's this craazy guy who sys something stupid every eight seconds and the whole thing's relentlessly colourless. Horrible animation too. Points for making big black guy Roadblock hit himself in the face with a spanner because dem negroes sure are stupid.

It's actually pretty much GI Joe Animated thinking about it. I kinda want all these people to die.

EDIT: And as well as haivng Funny Black Guy and Big Stupid Black Guy, we also now have Funny Asian Guy. Christ, I've been wathing the DIC shit the past few days, and this is a step down.

[inflatable dalek]

Watched part one, generally very good, and nicely assuming everyone knows the basic set up from the films (even if it's not film continuity as such) means it got to hit the ground running. Humans were mostly OK, the token girls hasn't really had much chance to establish any sort of character yet.

Found the score a bit distracting as the recurring motif sounds very like the main theme to the last Star Trek film, but otherwise and and cinematic.

[Prowl1984]

hmmm not bad, still not sold on the character design. Humans look like they were ripped and tweaked from a pixar movie. dislike. Ratchet's probably my favourite character so far with Arcee a close second. Great voice talent!

SPOILER! (select to read)

Not liking the references to Unicron so early on buuuut on the other hand i do like the idea of TF's having legends and myths that pre-date their existence being bought in to an animated show.

Dunno, series will probably grow on me and I'll be raving about it like I was with Animated in a month or so but until then, meh.

Oh and the camera shaking everytime a TF took a step REALLY f**ked me off.

[Blackjack]

Watched the first episode. Well, part of it, anyway.

Definitely better than Animated, which is speaking something. (Then again, I do have a weakness for the Movieverse, and since this show has a similar status quo to the Movieverse...)

SPOILER! (select to read)

-Love the fact that they introduce characters one by one (Cliffjumper and Arcee first, and then the others) instead of introdumping ten characters at once like Animated or Beast Wars did.

-The Rock as Cliffjumper was awesome.

-Like what people had said before, this is the first iteration of Arcee that I don't dislike immediately. Well, there's the movieverse one, but then she didn't do anything.

-Humans aren't annoying, which is a plus.

-Great CGI. Simply put.

-Excellent voice acting, distinctive voices and everything.

-Starscream starts off like the Movieverse guy -- a competent lieutenant. I applaud the show-writers for not immediately putting him on a betraying rampage in the first episode.

-The Decepticon drones are gorgeous. I have an urge to amass an army of their toys when they come out. Also, the perfect solution to make Megatron, Starscream et al badass instead of using human villains like Animated did.

-Love the cinematic score, very reminiscent of the live action movies and the more serious episodes in Beast Wars and Machines.

[Ackula]

I don't have time for an in depth post of what I did and didn't like, but it has left a very good impression on me. I'm not sure if it is going to be the same level of awesome that Animated was, for me, but it is surely moving in the right direction.

Not being a huge fan of the Movieverse, I was a little turned off at first..before ever watching it, but after seeing that if follows a different continuity, I'm hoping it stays as good as these first two episodes. It could use a tad bit better CGI detail on the towns and background locations, but I don't expect Pixar from a TV show, so I'm not really going to pick it apart on that level. It certainly looks better than anything else I've seen recently outside of a movie theater.

[Cliffjumper]

Buildings and towns seem to be a tricky area for CGI - they tend to look too clean and shiny, and it's difficult to make them look naturally full... Even in The Incredibles the city wasn't absolutely superb (compared to, say, the jungle island), but it's not hugely noticable because it's edited so well and the place is soon evacuated. It costs a fortune to animate a crowd of generic extras, litter and so on, and the scenes in Jacksville were the least impressive bit. I'm kinda hoping the action will largely keep to a mixture of bases and wide open spaces, which the CGI was certainly up to.

BTW, did anyone like the way the humans were told to stay out of the way for the raid on the mine, and then actually did? Granted I doubt it'll be like that every time, but it's certainly a nice start. I generally liked the rationale for human involvement. I even found it quite cute that Raf understood what Bumblebee was saying (especially as the rest of the Autobots did), and I hope there's not more to it, some big stupid revelation or whatever.

[inflatable dalek]

Still haven't had time for part 2 yet, but one more thought about the opening:

SPOILER! (select to read)

I'm not sure the Cliffjumper bluff worked as well as it could have. The guy was only in one scene after all, considering he was played by a celebrity guest star and he pretty much was a well telegraphed (literal) red shirt. Any surprise at him not making it is based upon prior knowledge that someone of the same name last had a decent sized role in Transformers fiction the best part of thirty years ago, and how many of the kids this is aimed at are going to have a clue about Traitor or the other episode and a half Cliffy had lines in?

For it to have really worked they needed to have either built up his role a bit before killing, or at least use one of the film/Animated guys the target audience might reasonably expect to be a main character, Ironhide perhaps?

My only other niggle is entirely down to me rather than the show itself, but it did feel a bit odd to have Cullen's well seasoned voice coming out of such a fresh faced Prime (though of course, there's no reason it shouldn't).

[Cliffjumper]

SPOILER! (select to read)

Eh, I think it worked pretty well considering deaths have been so rare on Western TF cartoons, and the general swiftness and pointlessness of it were great - he wasn't build up to being a major player because he obviously wasn't, and it illustrates how vulernerable the Autobots are. I don't think ti was meant to be OMG!!! SHOCK!!!!, just a way of showing that the rules might be different this time round.

I guess Cliffjumper was just pulled from a pool of names they don't have any plans for, and the bigger guns are being lept in reserve for if it takes off, so I suspet anyone who's been in any Movie/Animated media was off-limits, whereas Cliffjumper hasn't been in anything real people have seen or read since TF:TM. That said, i'm happy not to see any new Autobots or Decepticons for a while, especially not if it's going to be in a "HAY HER'S WHEELJACK HE LOKS LIKE SOMEONE OFF THE TELLY LOL!" way.

[another tf fan]

Quick post. Hot Sh!t. This is what Transformers should be.

"Rightfully Huge" Damn Right!

[Blackjack]

SPOILER! (select to read)

I actually like how Cliffjumper's death is pulled off. It's swift, brutal, and he gets a nice action scene beforehand. It also sets the mood that 'anyone can die' in this series.

A nice little red herring, considering that Cliff's been advertised so much in the pre-release material...

Watched the first half of the second episode. Like Bulkhead being portrayed as a silent tough guy instead of the village buffoon in Animated. Not saying Animated's bad per se, but I like this incarnation better.

Jack really feels like a renamed Sam Witwicky, while Rafael is a charming little kid. Don't like the human girl. Agent Fowler is a nice enough character for what little I've seen of him.

[Terome]

I thought it was okay!

SPOILER! (select to read)

Megatron as a Satanic Scarface is a reasonably new angle for him, isn't it? The crime of most Transformers fiction is that there never seems to be a clear idea of who Megatron is or what he wants. Now it is nice and simple - he is nuts, in an Event Horizon sort of way.

[Rookwise]

SPOILER! (select to read)

Lol at Jack saying to Arcee "the first rule of robot fight club is not to talk about robot fight club"
I thought Soundwave sounded as if he was voiced by a female at first until I realised he was playing a recording.
Shame about Cliffjumper getting killed off in the first 10mins and then becomming a mindless dark energon infused (Unicrons blood apparently) zombie and then getting blown up again in an energon explosion.
The girl in the child trio reminds me of Pepper potts from the Iron man Armoured Adventures series as she is equally annoying.
On a plus side the damage to the bots is more than a mere mark or scratch (eg. Starscream killing Cliffjumper by pushing his hands into Cliffjumpers chest and later Megatron slicing Cliffjumpers arm off)

I'm not too sure what to make of TF Prime. I'm hoping it will get better as it goes on as the first two episodes were a bit iffy for me. A bit of background into why the Autobots have dwindled to just a few or a short backstory would have been good as well as they just seem to have appeared on earth along with the Decepticons and the Autobots have already been in contact with the government or whoever that special agent was anyway.