NETFLIX War for Cybertron: SIEGE discussion WITH SPOILERS

[Magnus]

I totally loved it. Overall it was a solid presentation.

My main gripes:
- Too short. This clearly impacted both story arcs and character development.
- Voice acting was good for the most part, but I found that a lot of characters sounded the same or similar to others. I wish they would have done a better job of varying the voice types.
- Killed off Magnus!!!!

Everything else was awesome. Too bad we have to wait until 2021 for Earthrise.

[Stan Bush]

I thought it was slightly below my expectations, but I still enjoyed it and appreciated having a new, more serious show with a heavy G1 influence.

Positives:
-I liked the theme of Megatron and OP growing into the leaders we have come to know but not being there quite yet. Prime was a bit more boring, as he spoke slowly, and moped most of the time. Megs on the other hand, actually had an interesting arc. He started out being playing politics more, but as the season went on he started getting more and more ruthless.

-It was also fun to see the final stages of morality get exercised from the ranks of the Decepticons. Jetfire getting more uncomfortable with their methods before being replaced with somebody more bloodthirsty in Starscream

-I liked the Ratchet changes, and also liked a more solider-like Hound. Almost felt like Ironhide was miscast because Hound got his voice style?

-I also liked Shockwave. Scheming scientist suits him better than stoic loyal soldier. I thought he added much more menace than in his original incarnations

-I know a lot of people didn't like Bumblebee. I dunno. From a narrative POV someone had to be able to see the Autobots and not drink the Kool-Aid. I was ok with it being him. I also thought it was funny to see him devise the plan to steal from Soundblaster.

Negatives:
-Ultra Magnus. WTF? What a letdown for such a major character.

-The whole Alpha Trion protocol angle. Went through it all, just to take it away anyways? And if Bumblebee knew where the Allspark was, why didn't Magnus?

-How many Refraktors did we need exactly? They couldn't come up with a base generic Decepticon to use for group shots and make them more unique?

-The action sequences lacked. They were kinda boring and lacked fun and energy. Robots shoot at each other. Robots get shot. I thought the Jetfire sequence where he transformed, landed on a Seeker mid flight and cut off his nosecone, and transformed and took off again was a great example of how a lot more of the action could have gone.

-Decepticon Mirage being a hologram that lasted...what...20 seconds? I think seeing him undercover was a plot a LOT of people were stoked about. They teased us with an awesome toy and then that part was a major let down.

Overall, I hope Earthrise will now be brighter, and more fun with them off Cybertron. Looking forward to next season.

[innermanchild]

They had me right off the bat with Wheeljack and Bumblebee being the first characters we see and they're looking for energon, throwback to that first G1 episode.

I've read all the IDW comics and was alive for the G1 cartoon, so for me I think this series does a great job of combining both those arcs. I'm not very picky when it comes to these shows, I'm not looking for award winning stuff, just something entertaining and it was for me. I'm looking forward to the rest of the series.

[Dagger]

I enjoyed it but I don't think its good enough that I'd suggest it to anyone who already wasn't into Transformers.

Based off of what was shown in the show, I can't say that I'd have joined the Autobots.

[cr3d1t]

Pros: Way better than the last trilogy. Multiple intersecting storylines. G1 characters seen in new ways. I thought Optimus Prime's voice actor did a good job. Liked the mix of original and IDW history/story elements. I liked Shockwave as a mad scientist.

Cons: It wasn't super great. It was alright.

Here's a grab bag of brain farts from a middle-aged G1er who should probably take a nap.

- Everybody sounds the same, speaking with the same... slow... dramatic... speech... pattern. Feels like there's not enough content for 23 minutes (but still tons more than the last trilogy!) so they run down the clock that way.

- Soundwave's voice should only be done by a guy imitating Frank Welker's Dr. Claw voice with a flange effect applied. It's like they forgot how to do it.

- Every scene takes place in huge rooms or large corridors simply to get walks and talks out of the characters. The Autobots have no resources yet managed to build a cavernous space ship.

- They've been struggling to get energon for so long and they only needed two handfuls? Arcee had three energon canisters in her arms that looked like it took up more space. And it super charged the Ark and killed everybody immediately with all its lasers.

Some of the things I didn't like but realize it's the reality of a small TV budget:

- All the generic crowds were made up from recolored secondary characters. Why do we care about red Sideswipe when blue Sideswipe is just some background guy? Some of the same animations in the crowds were used right next to each other. And so many Refraktors.

- The last few episodes they avoided animating transformations when they could. Starscream would jump off screen, then the transformation sound would play, then the camera pans to see him in jet mode. Same as Jetfire once or twice.

- Who did we see actually transform in the whole series? Prime, Megatron, Seekers, Jetfire? Anybody else? My memory's not great.

Things I noticed because of the reality of animating toys:

- Everybody's arms were separated from their bodies so that when they articulate they don't clip into the chest. This makes everybody super wide.

- Man, the way everybody's lower body and hips sway when they walk is really unnerving. All the characters have rigid metal parts except for their stomachs. Seeing OP's grill bend made me wince.

- It was weird seeing Prowl being so short next to OP and Elita-1.

- The laser sound effects were lame, tinny pew pews. Here it sounds like they just dragged and dropped laserbeam001.wav into ProTools. Megatron's fusion cannon needs to sound intimidating.

Some of the plot stuff that bothered me:

- I don't know how Optimus Prime got to be leader when he makes clearly bad decisions.

- Ultra Magnus, Autobot military commander (?), ditches them for two episodes and nobody notices?

- Why does UM wear a cloak when his shoulder stacks that clearly identify him are uncovered? Never mind his uncommonly massive body for an Autobot.

- Why wear a cloak at all? What was the reason for it?

- Jetfire switching sides when he noticed Megatron was a bad person. The war's been going on for how long and he didn't notice?

- Why does Megatron have to be personally involved with everything?

- Why didn't anybody check if Impactor was actually okay? He was just underneath a metal panel. Also, he had a communicator. He couldn't call anybody?

- Megatron announced Impactor's death to his followers. Why is he important enough for them to care?

- They perform a "weapons check" at SoundBlaster's base yet don't notice Cog is basically all guns.

- Everybody has a communicator (as seen on Impactor) yet Skywarp has to go to Megatron directly to tell him about the Autobot base?

- I thought Mirage as a Decepticon was going to be a lot more interesting than what it was. Also, his disguise failed immediately yet later he's able to 1) create working clones of himself that are solid and fire lasers that cause harm, 2) apply a hologram over the space bridge. Also also, he almost dies (or is greatly hurt from the strain) when trying to do the hologram over the space bridge yet later he's perfectly fine?

- There are no shades of grey in the Autobot/Decepticon conflict. Everybody's like "There's no way I'm helping a DECEPTICON!", or "Who knew a DECEPTICON would help others?". Yes, yes, I get it. I get it.

- The sea of rust was a nothing event. Prowl gets throw into the winds, gets rescued (by a DECEPTICON!) by Jetfire yet everybody else just drives through.

- The Alpha Trion protocol was all for nothing? Fine, they found the Allspark.

- the Allspark was floating in the air glowing this whole time? Nobody noticed?

Misc, somewhat unrelated:

- I don't get why the Netflix Ultra Magnus was a spoiler box. What exactly did it spoil?
- What's the point of having a recolored Rung? I thought it had something to do with the actual series.

Alright, I'll stop now.

[Arthe]

Originally Posted by Malakhov

This easily became the best transformers animated series for me.

It still has some room for improvement in my opinion. Voice acting could be better and the plot could be ameliorated. Confident that Earthrise will improve upon siege, until then tf prime and maybe animated still top it.

[RNSrobot]

God the voice cast is a bunch of nobodies. ZzzZzzzzzzz

[SleeplessKnight]

I really enjoyed the show. The guy doing Starscream's voice is SPOT ON! Like Chris Latta reincarnated.

I did not expect Bumblebee to be such an edgelord. That kinda caught me off guard. I don't think I like it. I prefer him to be more plucky child-like little brother type character.

The background bots? WOW. Talk about lazy. Yeah I get it, they're probably limited in resources so they gotta take existing models and just give them palette swaps. But I recall a couple scenes where there was FOUR Sideswipes. Two of them red and two of them blue (they didn't even bother choosing different colours), a Reflector, a Seeker, two Prowls, two Hounds, and another Mirage. If you're going to use the same models for a group shot, at least change up the colors a bit more so that they're both different from each other so you don't have exact clones in the shot and don't choose colors matching the main and supporting cast because it gets really confusing.

[positivelyken]

Pretty funny to hear Arcee exclaim, when meeting Soundblaster, how much he looks like Soundwave, when both the Autobot and Decepticon armies are loaded with palette-swapped clones. And that's not even mentioning named characters who are clearly mold twins like Sideswipe and Red Alert, Moonracer and Chromia, Ironhide and Ratchet, Prowl and Barricade, and the entire Seeker armada! Why Arcee would be astonished by Soundblaster's appearance is hard to explain.

[positivelyken]

I'm gonna dig into that Soundblaster scene again because it gets more absurd the more I think about it. So Bumblebee gives a specific explanation for why Soundblaster looks like Soundwave: he's the product of a cloning experiment by Shockwave that apparently failed. And furthermore, Soundblaster is so sensitive/ashamed by this fact, Bumblebee warns Arcee not to bring up the resemblance.

This is the only time anyone ever points out that one character resembles another, and this instance comes with a backstory.

So what are we meant to assume about all the other mold twin pairings I mentioned, and all the recolored clones that make up the bulk of the Autobot and Decepticon armies, and Soundblaster's guards, and the undead Cybertronians in the Sea of Rust? What's the explanation for them? Just naturally occurring duplicates? Or are they, too, clones manufactured for war?

I like that Soundblaster is a distinct character with his own personality and ambitions. He's almost like a Swindle stand-in here, which is interesting. (Incidentally, too bad we never got an actual Swindle as a Hound redeco). But the fact Soundblaster needed his appearance explained just spotlights all the clones and copies used to fill out the background.