Ladies and gentlemen, do not be fooled. The popularity of the show does by no means indicate its laughable quality.
I've extracted every last bit of kindness and open- mindedness from my soul to still have to reach the unfortunate conclusion that there is literally nothing good about Transformers: Prime.
As a show that started out with great ambition and tons of preaches thrown at the fan base (producers were given production bible, series would be a mix of all other Transformers series that there ever were before, "it's a show before it's a toy line," blah, blah, blah), about its alleged potential for awesomeness, this iteration of Transformers is all the more disappointing and an ugly scar on the face of the fandom's history. If you were a member of the TFW discussion boards, you would find that I, by no means at all, am the only one who feels these malevolent gibes.
I'll reiterate, there is nothing "right" with the series. Its biggest problem to start, among thousands of other glaring issues, is that all of the characters are cringe-worthy in writing, all in their own individual ways. Lacking in personalities, distinctions, or even so much as kindhearted homages, the small cast is unlikable, unrelatable, and share literally no consistent chemistry with one another through out the entire course of the series up to now. I'll use the most obvious defender, Bumblebee, as my primary example: the main protagonist that likely has the least screen time in the show, he's there for no other reason than to keep your kids happy. His vocoder has been allegedly savagely torn out by the Autobots' biggest enemy in a tragic and devastating battle, leaving him voiceless and communicating only through a series of robotic beeps. Reasonably, this horrid occurrence has effected him, right? There are personal hazards and obstacles that he has to hurdle to peacefully emerge from the rickety state of mind that those bad memories have put him in, right? And it can only take the help and support of his teammates and his human companion to help him through, right?
In all actuality, there is no such development, interaction, or dynamic to be had in him or any other characters. The "voice box incident" was brought up three times at the very maximum and has shown no actual continuing baring on Bumblebee's behavior or personality and all potential for such has been skillfully wasted. Which, I must emphasize, is only a repeating pattern in every last cursed contingency of the show. Heretofore, keep in mind that the aforementioned was merely just one of hundreds of possible examples. Arcee and her struggling with the death of two former friends? Bore no clear development on her either and her representation in the show began to notably plummet when he main rival was put into stasis, blatantly showing that without the lackluster foil on one another, their personas have nothing more to offer.
Oh, but I waste time by simply venting justified examples of the pretentiousness and laziness of the execution of this iteration. I can only continue to reiterate that it's simply written terribly and there's no better way to encapsulate what makes it so bad; put simply, it just didn't live up to what it was supposed to be. Tons of potential story lines, character development, subplots, and inter-plot/team dynamics have been randomly dropped as thought the writers have forgotten about it. Inasmuch, don't be excited if you think there was indicator towards consistency with a story or a character in the show. It'll get thrown to the dumpster like the rest of Transformer Prime's good ideas.
Hitherto, with absolutely no good or immersing convolutions that even a third grader would be able to work into his writing to speak of, the show has been sloppily stripped down to nothing but a clichéd, one-track plot line with dialogue. Without exaggeration, 90% of the show is spent by the characters going out to hunt for relics and absolutely no time is spent on ongoing changes in characters or story. Succumbing to the clichéd "good guys must get to the thing before bad guys get to the thing," I cannot begin to comprehend how anybody would honestly think that it's a good production. The plot, the characters, the animation, all just shamelessly terrible. Occasionally you'll get the even more cringe-worthy gimmicks, like killing a guy off just to prove that they're serious (the death would be later forgotten, of course), or throwing in a bad name-drop that adds nothing to the already rock-bottom quality. "We've got BEAST WARS on our hands." I believe that the writers honestly think that painfully obvious homages will undo the wrongs that they've done.
But wait, what? Animation? Did that person just say Transformers: Prime's animation, which has one Emmy's for its graphic deliciousness, is bad? Yes, children, even the animation does it no favors. It may make the robots look shiny and realistic, but literally everything else suffers. Starting with the environments, which are barren and forsaken on an other worldly level. Add to that the animators can't afford to render extras, further rendering the setting to resemble Venus. The few humans that are animated look terrible by default since they're not made of metal. And most critically, the cast expansion is next to nonexistent.
Speaking of, the show really jumped the shark when it repeated, still with a lack of annoying shamelessness, the Rodimus story line. It was with this that I finally admitted that Transformers: Prime absolutely sucks.
I won't lie, the show started off strong. But with many righteous promises of gold and silver turning out to be muddled on the same 0-star quality as Transformers: Energon, I would not recommend this series to anybody; Transformers fan or otherwise.
I've extracted every last bit of kindness and open- mindedness from my soul to still have to reach the unfortunate conclusion that there is literally nothing good about Transformers: Prime.
As a show that started out with great ambition and tons of preaches thrown at the fan base (producers were given production bible, series would be a mix of all other Transformers series that there ever were before, "it's a show before it's a toy line," blah, blah, blah), about its alleged potential for awesomeness, this iteration of Transformers is all the more disappointing and an ugly scar on the face of the fandom's history. If you were a member of the TFW discussion boards, you would find that I, by no means at all, am the only one who feels these malevolent gibes.
I'll reiterate, there is nothing "right" with the series. Its biggest problem to start, among thousands of other glaring issues, is that all of the characters are cringe-worthy in writing, all in their own individual ways. Lacking in personalities, distinctions, or even so much as kindhearted homages, the small cast is unlikable, unrelatable, and share literally no consistent chemistry with one another through out the entire course of the series up to now. I'll use the most obvious defender, Bumblebee, as my primary example: the main protagonist that likely has the least screen time in the show, he's there for no other reason than to keep your kids happy. His vocoder has been allegedly savagely torn out by the Autobots' biggest enemy in a tragic and devastating battle, leaving him voiceless and communicating only through a series of robotic beeps. Reasonably, this horrid occurrence has effected him, right? There are personal hazards and obstacles that he has to hurdle to peacefully emerge from the rickety state of mind that those bad memories have put him in, right? And it can only take the help and support of his teammates and his human companion to help him through, right?
In all actuality, there is no such development, interaction, or dynamic to be had in him or any other characters. The "voice box incident" was brought up three times at the very maximum and has shown no actual continuing baring on Bumblebee's behavior or personality and all potential for such has been skillfully wasted. Which, I must emphasize, is only a repeating pattern in every last cursed contingency of the show. Heretofore, keep in mind that the aforementioned was merely just one of hundreds of possible examples. Arcee and her struggling with the death of two former friends? Bore no clear development on her either and her representation in the show began to notably plummet when he main rival was put into stasis, blatantly showing that without the lackluster foil on one another, their personas have nothing more to offer.
Oh, but I waste time by simply venting justified examples of the pretentiousness and laziness of the execution of this iteration. I can only continue to reiterate that it's simply written terribly and there's no better way to encapsulate what makes it so bad; put simply, it just didn't live up to what it was supposed to be. Tons of potential story lines, character development, subplots, and inter-plot/team dynamics have been randomly dropped as thought the writers have forgotten about it. Inasmuch, don't be excited if you think there was indicator towards consistency with a story or a character in the show. It'll get thrown to the dumpster like the rest of Transformer Prime's good ideas.
Hitherto, with absolutely no good or immersing convolutions that even a third grader would be able to work into his writing to speak of, the show has been sloppily stripped down to nothing but a clichéd, one-track plot line with dialogue. Without exaggeration, 90% of the show is spent by the characters going out to hunt for relics and absolutely no time is spent on ongoing changes in characters or story. Succumbing to the clichéd "good guys must get to the thing before bad guys get to the thing," I cannot begin to comprehend how anybody would honestly think that it's a good production. The plot, the characters, the animation, all just shamelessly terrible. Occasionally you'll get the even more cringe-worthy gimmicks, like killing a guy off just to prove that they're serious (the death would be later forgotten, of course), or throwing in a bad name-drop that adds nothing to the already rock-bottom quality. "We've got BEAST WARS on our hands." I believe that the writers honestly think that painfully obvious homages will undo the wrongs that they've done.
But wait, what? Animation? Did that person just say Transformers: Prime's animation, which has one Emmy's for its graphic deliciousness, is bad? Yes, children, even the animation does it no favors. It may make the robots look shiny and realistic, but literally everything else suffers. Starting with the environments, which are barren and forsaken on an other worldly level. Add to that the animators can't afford to render extras, further rendering the setting to resemble Venus. The few humans that are animated look terrible by default since they're not made of metal. And most critically, the cast expansion is next to nonexistent.
Speaking of, the show really jumped the shark when it repeated, still with a lack of annoying shamelessness, the Rodimus story line. It was with this that I finally admitted that Transformers: Prime absolutely sucks.
I won't lie, the show started off strong. But with many righteous promises of gold and silver turning out to be muddled on the same 0-star quality as Transformers: Energon, I would not recommend this series to anybody; Transformers fan or otherwise.