Quite admittedly I had never been a Transformers fan until recently. I often tried the original series when I was a kid but I always found it too childish, even as a kid. I preferred G I JOE. The concept of transformers always interested me but I never actually found a cartoon that did justice to the franchise. The movies rekindled my interest but they were far from great. Too much emphasis was given to the human characters to go with other problems. In Transformers: Prime I have finally found something that I had always wished Transformers to be.
The basic mood of this series perfectly suits Transformers. It's serious but has enough humor. It has a dark feel to it which seems to be a missing ingredient of all previous Transformers series.
The picture quality is amazing. The robots look fantastic and the humans look fairly good too. The background quality does vary a bit from episode to episode but even the minimum level is very good. The camera work is excellent.
The writing is generally very good as well although there are times when it feels a little stretched out. The dialog is impressive.
The musical score is excellent and that really helps the mood and tension of any scene. Transformers is meant to be epic. That is exactly what the music reflects. At times the power of the music is such that if you get involved enough it will take you places.
But the true strength of this series is the characters. Every single character has incredible depth and development, and you can really feel that every character is unique. The bad guys are always more interesting but here you'll also come to love the good guys because you'll feel that you really know them and get to ride along in their emotional journey. The writers did not throw cheap characters by the hundreds but instead carefully chose a few and decided to make them complete.
I would go as far as to say that the quality of the show is wasted on young viewers who would probably struggle to realize just how good it is, but enjoy it all the same. This is art, not just entertainment for kids.
If you will ever love Transformers then this is it. Even if you never liked it before give it a try. You might just fall in love with it.
