I still haven't watched Earthrise because I keep forgetting about it and because I've heard some less than stellar things about it.
I'm also becoming increasingly frustrated by the state of collecting right now. It's at the point where just getting the baseline mass-market figures that should be easy to obtain has become a bafflingly difficult ordeal. Like today I finally ordered a Kingdom Dinobot off Amazon almost 3 months after its debut even though it's not in stock and I'm pretty much buying the promise that I should get one eventually, maybe. Just because I've yet to see one on a shelf in a Walmart or Toys R Us because stock levels suck and scalpers show up at store openings to poach everything right away. Never mind the limited availability stuff like Thrust and Runabout (I had to complain to TRU customer service about their staff dicking me over on a stock check for someone there to have a Runabout shipped from a store out in the boonies to my local one for purchase) or the fact that some stuff just plain isn't getting released in significant amounts (to my knowledge almost nobody has been able to get the Ramjet/Dirge double pack in North America unless they bought a chinese knockoff or one of the limited quantities of sets released in Japan)
If I'm totally honest I think I'm getting to the point that I might stop collecting most figures after Kingdom just because it's more frustration and stress than enjoyment.
That said, Studio Series 86 is fantastic. SS86 Grimlock is a thing of beauty, as is Jazz, Scourge, and Hot Rod.
I have seen them at Target. They aren't very popular. I'll check my target for new Transformers pretty much each time I go in there. I picked up 3 the past few weeks that I was debating to buy on Amazon. WW2 Bumblebee, Cyberton B187, and Hot Rod. The Earthrise toys have been there for quite some time, at least 2 months.
I have seen them at Target. They aren't very popular. I'll check my target for new Transformers pretty much each time I go in there. I picked up 3 the past few weeks that I was debating to buy on Amazon. WW2 Bumblebee, Cyberton B187, and Hot Rod. The Earthrise toys have been there for quite some time, at least 2 months.
Some of it is just that Canadian distribution really sucks. My local Walmart gets maybe 1 case of transformers at a time, so that's 1 each of the Leader class figures and 2-3 of each Voyager class. I only got Beast Wars Megatron because I lucked into standing in the aisle when an employee brought out a fresh pack of wave 1 leaders (I had no need for the Optimus Prime, it's a re-release of Earthrise Optimus). I've never seen the retro headmasters that were out since late last year in store. The only thing I've ever seen live and in person from Kingdom Wave 2 are Arcee (who's just an Earthrise re-release and doesn't sell well) and Ractonite (and not everyone wants the fossil bots)
I also just caved and pre-ordered the wave 3 stuff that's coming (Tracks, BW Scorponok, Rhinox) but missed out on pre-ordering Galvatron because Walmart is already sold out on pre-orders. Plus Amazon sold out on pre-orders of the next Studio Series 86 wave (Leader Slag w/mini-Daniel in an Exosuit, Voyager Wreck-Gar, Deluxe Gnaw/Sharkticon) after a couple of days, so I went from figuring I could pick them up whenever I want up until October to "oh hell, now I have to wait and pray they don't just stay up as 3rd party sales at ridiculous prices)
The distribution model is also apparently changing as they're going to ditch Titan class figures after this year's Ark one and apparently will likely go with 2 Commander class ones a year. But that's already also going a bit sideways because the Kingdom Commander is Rodimus Prime who is basically a glorified Leader class with extra bits and bobs.
Tack on a price increase (deluxes are now $32.99 base MSRP. As recently as Power of the Primes they were $20) and how much of a hose job Hasbro Pulse is (shipping to Canada is super pricey. If I wanted the Centurion Drone with all the G1 silly add-ins like energon cubes, melee weapons for Optimus and Megatron, cartoon accurate guns for Bumblebee and I think Arcee, Sideswipe's jetpack, etc it would've cost me almost double the actual price) and it's becoming harder to justify collecting in a widespread fashion. Unless the next cycle after WFC does something super fun like obscure Japanese series characters (Masterforce, Victory, Beast Wars Neo) or like... new Protectobots or something.
Still pissed that I didn't back into collecting until after Combiner Wars and Titans Return. I would kill for the updated Topspin and Twin Twist, but they're a little expensive on the secondary market.
Optimus Prime will be the lead robot hero of the film, this time sporting an absolutely awesome G1 design, and Peter Cullen will be back to provide his voice.
Bumblebee will also be back, with a new vehicle design that's an off-road Camaro variant of his usual look.
Mirage, who transforms into a Porsche 911, and a pair of new female characters in Arcee, who transforms into a Ducati 916, and the Terrorcon Nightbird, who has switched allegiances and transforms into a black-and-purple Nissan GTR.
As for the titular Beasts, we saw concept art for Airazor (falcon), Rhinox (rhinoceros), and Optimus Primal (gorilla).
Optimus Prime will be the lead robot hero of the film, this time sporting an absolutely awesome G1 design, and Peter Cullen will be back to provide his voice.
Bumblebee will also be back, with a new vehicle design that's an off-road Camaro variant of his usual look.
Mirage, who transforms into a Porsche 911, and a pair of new female characters in Arcee, who transforms into a Ducati 916, and the Terrorcon Nightbird, who has switched allegiances and transforms into a black-and-purple Nissan GTR.
As for the titular Beasts, we saw concept art for Airazor (falcon), Rhinox (rhinoceros), and Optimus Primal (gorilla).
I was intrigued when I thought that it was an animated movie (especially because that logo is cheesy and retro, like an animated title would be). I wish that they'd go back to those, not necessarily 2D, but at least 100% CGI so that they don't have to keep grounding them in real Earth locations and with human interest stories.
Really chaps my ass how they handled the VA for this trilogy. Giving the middle finger to Peter Cullen and getting some dollar store ripoff cause you don't wanna pay him.
Hasbro had some big money flops with Transformers Prime and the Prime Wars Trilogy machinima series. Since then they have slashed the cast budgets significantly by chiefly going for non-union voice actors.
This means that at best you get f-tier copycats like the current Optimus Prime voice and at worst you get trash voices who can't act worth a damn.
Trying to complete the rest of my MTMTE collection. Need to find Volume 3-10 but I'm having no luck on Amazon or Chapters/Indigo. Any idea where I could find these?
Hasbro had some big money flops with Transformers Prime and the Prime Wars Trilogy machinima series. Since then they have slashed the cast budgets significantly by chiefly going for non-union voice actors.
This means that at best you get f-tier copycats like the current Optimus Prime voice and at worst you get trash voices who can't act worth a damn.
It at least looks cooler than Siege did, though everything has this kind of washed out, low-saturation look to it that muddies all the color and that's annoying.
But then there's the voices/acting. It's just so bad. The only voice that I really appreciated was Starscream's for being possibly the best possible homage to the Chris Latta voice without sounding like a borderline parody of the Latta voice (which is hard to do becuase that voice is just so unique that it's hard to emulate without it sounding like a purposefully over-the-top, terrible impression).
And I just don't know if I can do Beast Wars Megatron without David Kaye. I know that it's probably considered more sacreligious to not have Cullen and Welker, but if there's a voice and mannerism and everything that just defines a character and makes it what it is, it's David Kaye vacillating between cold, calculating monster and full hamtastic bond villain as purple t-rex Megatron.
I'm probably gonna look stupid, but I can't tell if this is a joke or not. If it's not, I imagine it'll be along the same lines as what it was in Beast Wars, which I won't spoil because you should just go to Tubi TV and watch the series. It's not that long (1 26 episode season, 2 13 episode ones) and is fantastic once you get over the early hurdles and into about the midway point of season 1.
I love that movie to death and when I reviewed it on a Transformers site as part of a massive project to rewatch all the series (we're up to being nearly finished the Japanese-only Beast Wars sequels and then its on to the 2001 stand-alone anime series and the Unicron Trilogy of animes) I gave it an overall grade of A-, but if you look at it from the perspective of its actual technical skill and construction as a movie, it's kind of a hot mess. Visually it's stunning, and I admire the balls they had to do something as dark as spend the first 20 minutes just machine-gunning down beloved characters without remorse (even if I acknowledge that it was not a strong narrative choice as much as it was naked, pragmatic capitalism in action). But so much disconnected and random stuff happens for no explainable reason while we're suddenly asked to care about a bunch of stuff that's like super-important to the history of the franchise but since it never existed before the movie it was never even hinted at or introduced beforehand.
It feels like a movie frankensteined together from a half-dozen different scripts that were ruthlessly hacked up and reassembled.
Probably because that's exactly what it is.
Also like 3/4s of the stunt-cast movie actors kinda sucked or were at best no better than the full-time voice actors who replaced them for the following season of the show.
I love that movie to death and when I reviewed it on a Transformers site as part of a massive project to rewatch all the series (we're up to being nearly finished the Japanese-only Beast Wars sequels and then its on to the 2001 stand-alone anime series and the Unicron Trilogy of animes) I gave it an overall grade of A-, but if you look at it from the perspective of its actual technical skill and construction as a movie, it's kind of a hot mess. Visually it's stunning, and I admire the balls they had to do something as dark as spend the first 20 minutes just machine-gunning down beloved characters without remorse (even if I acknowledge that it was not a strong narrative choice as much as it was naked, pragmatic capitalism in action). But so much disconnected and random stuff happens for no explainable reason while we're suddenly asked to care about a bunch of stuff that's like super-important to the history of the franchise but since it never existed before the movie it was never even hinted at or introduced beforehand.
It feels like a movie frankensteined together from a half-dozen different scripts that were ruthlessly hacked up and reassembled.
Probably because that's exactly what it is.
Also like 3/4s of the stunt-cast movie actors kinda sucked or were at best no better than the full-time voice actors who replaced them for the following season of the show.
Yeah, but it has one of the best theme songs ever, plus Leonard Nimoy as Galvatron and Orson Welles as Unicron. If the choice is between that and a script that makes sense, I know which one I'm picking!
Yeah, but it has one of the best theme songs ever, plus Leonard Nimoy as Galvatron and Orson Welles as Unicron. If the choice is between that and a script that makes sense, I know which one I'm picking!
Related hot take to what I said above: Leonard Nimoy kinda sucked as Galvatron. Frank Welker's raving crazy Galvatron from season 3 was a lot more enjoyable.
Welles as Unicron was solid (if held back by his failing health at points) though.
Hasbro had some big money flops with Transformers Prime and the Prime Wars Trilogy machinima series. Since then they have slashed the cast budgets significantly by chiefly going for non-union voice actors.
This means that at best you get f-tier copycats like the current Optimus Prime voice and at worst you get trash voices who can't act worth a damn.
Was Transformers Prime a flop? I enjoyed that series. The Machinima ones were bad. Poor writing. Think there was a scene were Megatron used human biology rather than machine circuits to describe something.
Cullen is getting older. He can really only voice a mature Optimus now. Not a "green" version of him.
Was Transformers Prime a flop? I enjoyed that series. The Machinima ones were bad. Poor writing. Think there was a scene were Megatron used human biology rather than machine circuits to describe something.
Cullen is getting older. He can really only voice a mature Optimus now. Not a "green" version of him.
The Prime toy line was a huge failure. And that's what Hasbro cares about in the end. The shows aren't out to make money on their own, just to make parents and big kids like us buy the toys. They spent an obscene amount of money producing Prime and by season 2 they were slashing it's budget significantly. It's why Breakdown was killed and Airachnid was pushed aside. To save money on their super expensive voice actors.
It's also why The Hub tv network was shuttered. The money they spent on it to air shows of their properties wasn't worth it outside of my little pony and 1 franchise couldn't carry the whole operation.
It at least looks cooler than Siege did, though everything has this kind of washed out, low-saturation look to it that muddies all the color and that's annoying.
But then there's the voices/acting. It's just so bad. The only voice that I really appreciated was Starscream's for being possibly the best possible homage to the Chris Latta voice without sounding like a borderline parody of the Latta voice (which is hard to do becuase that voice is just so unique that it's hard to emulate without it sounding like a purposefully over-the-top, terrible impression).
And I just don't know if I can do Beast Wars Megatron without David Kaye. I know that it's probably considered more sacreligious to not have Cullen and Welker, but if there's a voice and mannerism and everything that just defines a character and makes it what it is, it's David Kaye vacillating between cold, calculating monster and full hamtastic bond villain as purple t-rex Megatron.
I'm probably gonna look stupid, but I can't tell if this is a joke or not. If it's not, I imagine it'll be along the same lines as what it was in Beast Wars, which I won't spoil because you should just go to Tubi TV and watch the series. It's not that long (1 26 episode season, 2 13 episode ones) and is fantastic once you get over the early hurdles and into about the midway point of season 1.
I love that movie to death and when I reviewed it on a Transformers site as part of a massive project to rewatch all the series (we're up to being nearly finished the Japanese-only Beast Wars sequels and then its on to the 2001 stand-alone anime series and the Unicron Trilogy of animes) I gave it an overall grade of A-, but if you look at it from the perspective of its actual technical skill and construction as a movie, it's kind of a hot mess. Visually it's stunning, and I admire the balls they had to do something as dark as spend the first 20 minutes just machine-gunning down beloved characters without remorse (even if I acknowledge that it was not a strong narrative choice as much as it was naked, pragmatic capitalism in action). But so much disconnected and random stuff happens for no explainable reason while we're suddenly asked to care about a bunch of stuff that's like super-important to the history of the franchise but since it never existed before the movie it was never even hinted at or introduced beforehand.
It feels like a movie frankensteined together from a half-dozen different scripts that were ruthlessly hacked up and reassembled.
Probably because that's exactly what it is.
Also like 3/4s of the stunt-cast movie actors kinda sucked or were at best no better than the full-time voice actors who replaced them for the following season of the show.
As I have mentioned numerous times, I have never watched Beast Wars. I was out of the world of Transformers by 1989. Relentlessly chasing ass and driving fast cars became much more appealing, and to my shock totally attainable.
As I have mentioned numerous times, I have never watched Beast Wars. I was out of the world of Transformers by 1989. Relentlessly chasing ass and driving fast cars became much more appealing, and to my shock totally attainable.
Go watch it. It's really, really, really good. And far less daunting than, say, the original cartoon's nearly 100 episodes plus movie.
The first season starts kind of slow but picks up steam about halfway through and from there it's pretty much pedal to the metal the whole rest of the way through the series with a lot of really fun drama, comedy and some great characters with outstanding voice acting.
It's free to watch too, so you've got nothing to lose.
The short version of the gold record explanation (which I'll address both with and without spoiling its somewhat central role in the BW story):
It's the golden record that was launched into space on the Voyager 2 spacecraft. In real life. It really is a thing that actually exists. And in the series it's something that Megatron (who is the namesake of but not the same character as G1 Megatron. Think less raving despot warlord and more cunning/calculating Bond villain. The show does specifically call out that BW Megatron chose the name of the famous G1 version mostly as an exercise in ego-stroking.) stole at the outset of the series, setting off the events of the Beast Wars story and culminating in the explanation of what it is and what it's for during the middle and late stages of Season 2. And "what it's for" is a rather big deal.
Or
The disc is, as it is in real life, a collection of information about Earth including images of man-made and natural landmarks like scenic mountain ranges and whatnot. Because Beast Wars is actually happening on an Earth in the distant past, it gives Megatron something of an unfettered look at the future of the planet from the point in time that the crews are stranded on the planet, which in turn gives him the ability to see and measure how he can alter the timeline (which he tests by blowing up a mountain and seeing the record on the disc change from a complete mountain to a shattered pile of ancient rubble)
To this end he ultimately uses it to attempt to wipe out the early anthropoid ancestors of humanity in an attempt to prevent them from aiding the Autobots against the Decepticons during The Great War (ie: what happened in G1. Beast Wars is set in an indeterminate future well after some non-specific version of G1 came to pass. It pulls references from both the cartoon and the Marvel comics series in a way that marries it to neither continuity, but also doesn't require you to know everything about either of them to follow this show.)
He hits upon this plan because the disc has a secret included on it: a message from the original G1 Megatron secretly recorded on it after it was launched from Earth in the 20th century. Sensing the Decepticons were losing the war Megs put this message on the disc for future descendants to find so they could do what Beast Wars' Megatron is doing: go back in time and mess with history. This includes G1 Megs' master plan: include on the disc the location of The Ark, the Autobots' ship that crashed into the mountainside with the crews of both factions on it (which happened in the G1 cartoon's pilot episode) so that whoever uses the disc can find the still-unconscious Autobots who are all in stasis for like 4 million years until they wake up in 1985 and murder Optimus Prime, erasing pretty much all chance of an Autobot victory from the history books and rewriting the war in favor of the Decepticons and, by extension, their Beast Wars descendants: the Predacons)
The scene I put in spoiler tags in my previous post is the climax of this plot and the last moments of the season 2 finale. And just to make it even more fun, they wrote this finale not knowing if the show would even get a 3rd season, so this could've theoretically been how it all ended.
I can't possibly do this whole plotline justice. It is what carries most of the back half of season 2 and it is easily the best part of the whole series, including quite possibly the best episode of any Transformers media ever made, "Code of Hero"
I can't suggest watching that episode in vacuum because you need the context of previous episodes for it to make sense plus the history of like 1 and two thirds seasons to really invest in the characters, but goddamn if it's not a fantastic 22 minutes from beginning to end.
Yes, the CG for the series is a bit (a lot) dated since it was I think at worst the 2nd or 3rd fully CG animated half-hour TV cartoon ever made, but it's still impressive to see how well the animators were able to wring some solid action and especially a lot of great "acting" out of the characters. Strong facial expressions, little tics and motions, background events. Lots of stuff happens that makes this show feel a lot more alive than almost any of the CG animated series that came after it.
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