I loved Transformers Seasons 1 and 2 so much that you may know I have a bit of ire towards the movie and Season 3 for ruining that. But, I thought if I could get over that and just enjoy the Season 3 episodes for what they are, I'd be okay with it. (I mean, at least we don't have to see characters like Ratchet and Wheeljack getting blown away Alien3 style before they even have a line of dialogue in these episodes.)
But, my oh my, where to start? First of all, it's obvious these episodes were written by the same guy (guys?) who wrote the movie, because they're very "episodic", and the writer(s) seemed to have a fetish for hitting you with as many plot twists as possible in the time constraints of a 20-minute show, and there's no real structure to anything.
One thing that annoys me is that some of the Autobots seem really dumb...There's a scene where Wheelie and Blurr are being attacked by these bat-like monsters on Jupiter's moon, Io, and instead of just transforming and driving away, they stand there swatting at them. Give me a break! Aren't Wheelie and Blurr supposed to be really, REALLY fast in their vehicle modes? I could've outrun those monsters in my Corsica! Rodimus Prime is another example. I think Ultra Magnus got gypped (stupid Matrix!) The writers make Rodimus seem like a real loser. He says inappropriate things at inappropriate moments. I think if my spaceship were blown apart and I was sent hurdling towards an unknown planet and someone told me, "Relax and enjoy the ride!", I'd punch 'em out. He's also nearly killed just because the Decepticons ganged up on him and bonked him on the head a few times. Optimus Prime was blown up 4000000000000000000000 times throughout Seasons 1 and 2 and that never stopped him (at least not until the movie, anyway.)
Action scenes are sometimes silly, like this machine that's sucking up thousands of gallons of this goo-like substance on Planet Goo, and Rodimus defeats it by placing a handful of the goo substance into the part that's sucking it up. Huh?? Other action scenes I found really confusing. I don't understand why shooting a torch at the olympics caused lasers to fire everywhere and a thick dark cloud of smoke to fill up the entire arena. And when the Autobots escape Planet Goo, there are several scenes of Galvatron blowing something up in frustration, but I can't tell what the heck it is he's blowing up.
The Quintessons the creators of the Autobots? A subject of controversy amongst many Transfans. I don't buy it. Cybertron is too majestic and mysterious a world to have been a factory all along. It's also too obvious a Retcon. In the movie, there were only two Quintessons and they were just looney tunes acting looney. There was no real reason for the trials and the defendants were being pronounced "innocent". The show is trying to make it sound like the Autobots were actually being accused of some crime in that escapade. Also, the Quintesson origin story contradicts the Transformers origin story of Seasons 1 and 2 in two important ways:
1. It was impossible for the Constructicons to have created Megatron to be the Decepticon leader, if Omega Supreme's story is to be trusted, even if only in part, if Megatron was the one who convinced the Constructicons to join him.
2. The Quintessons story says that the Autobots and Decepticons were manufacted together and lived together all along, but in the Season 2 episode, when the Aerialbots go back in time, Orion Pax says of the Decepticons, "They're a new kind of robot that can fly!", which seems to imply that they were not around in the beginning. And if they were there since the beginning and the fighting had been going on all along, then the famous "Golden Age of Cybertron", which was referred to many, many times in Seasons 1-2, could not have existed, or at least, could not have lasted as long as it was said to have lasted. (And it would also make no sense that the TFs would remember that, but not the Quintessons.)
Finally, the episode "The Killing Jar"...Umm...first of all, I don't know why this episode is called "The Killing Jar". There's nothing in it that seems to relate to that at all. Secondly...well, it seemed at first like this episode might go somewhere. A Quintesson kidnaps an Autobot, a Decepticon, a Junkion, and a human in order to perform experiments on the different "races" to see how they'll react to situations. But then, moments after everyone is captured, they escape, and then most of the remaining episode is nothing but a bunch of pointless fighting. The ship ends up careening into a Negative Universe, and again, you think something might happen, but they just immediately fly back out of the Negative Universe and then the show pretty much ends there. Wtf??
I hope these shows get better. I've heard that Dark Awakening (which is on this set) is pretty good, and so is Call of the Primitives (which is not on this set, but should be on the next one.)
I like Wreck-Gar.
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Crawl and 1000 