Has Transformers Jumped the Shark?

This is Optimus Prime, and you're listening to

All Things Transformers. Hello, and welcome to...

All Things Transformers. I'm your host, the Megatron

Phillips, and joining me this episode is... The

medically dead Rodimus Prime. Otherwise known

as? TFG1 Mike. He's dead, Jim. Oh wait, wrong

franchise. Wrong franchise. Get it right. So

we were kind of talking off air trying to figure

out how we were going to do this episode of ATTF,

and since I have more energy tonight than Mike

does and usually it's the other way around, I

figured a way to tie this all together because

we're going to talk a little bit about Transformers

Cyberverse, which I'm... Cautiously optimistic

he's Like fuck that show. Yep. So you've heard

his opinion. So we're gonna talk about how transformers

has jumped the shark There has been a lot of

things in the last 30 something years, you know

30 it was a 30 So 30th anniversary 20 so 34 years

There have been a lot of things that Transformers

has and has not done. Some people say Beast Machines

was jumping the shark. I say it's a dark continuation

of Beast Wars because that's what it is. I think

it jumped the shark the first time when it went

red and then the energon, like the Armada, Cybertron,

energoniverse. The Unicron Trilogy, yeah. That's

what it's called. And then we got Animated, which

was okay. Animated was cool because it gave you

sort of G1 things, but it also gave you in a

new animated style. And it built storylines that

we would have probably never seen in the original

Sunbow G1 cartoon. It did things with characters

that like there's one point and I've told this

story a million times since I It took me a while

to get around my head around animated I know

there's some people out there that still don't

like that show and I understand that and that's

fine That's their opinion. I like aspects of

it, but the whole ask like the the whole thing

about it Wasn't my favorite show, but I still

I enjoyed the voice cast. I enjoyed what they

tried to do with it. Mm -hmm There were a few

elements I found to be lacking like the human

characters But other than that, I didn't really

have that big of an issue with it Although I

think if I went back and listened to my clips,

I'd rediscover what I hated about it Yeah There

are moments in that show that absolutely in that

series that I absolutely love and If a show can

literally make me fall out of bed on a Saturday

morning from something that they did in a storyline

Then you know it has to have some sort of goodness

in there when they finally had Long arm prime

slash shockwave use his true colors. I never

thought they would ever do it I mean, I know

Derek J. Wyatt and Matt Youngberg and all those

guys that were super fans and were working on

the show and everything else, but I never thought

that we would see a purple animated shockwave,

and we finally did, and when they had that as

one of the endings of one of the season three

episodes, I was like, oh crap, I need to catch

myself. because I'm about to fall out of bed

over here. So I don't necessarily think Animated

jumped the shark. I'll say that Beast Wars saved

the franchise in 96 because between 87 and 96,

not a lot of Transformers stuff was going on.

I'll say Animated kind of gave it a reinvigoration

after the crappy Unicron trilogy. And I know

there are people out there that love Armada and

maybe to a lesser extent Energon and Cybertron

but That's not my Transformers and my Transformers

doesn't have to be the G1 cartoon. It really

doesn't even though it is most of the time I

Find myself watching or going back and watching

Beast Machines more often than I do G1 like I've

seen Beast Machines in the last five years Maybe

seven times I need to go back and watch Beast

Wars of Beast Machines Yeah. You know, so I have

my Transformers stuff that I love and that I

care about and whatever, and I'm kinda keeping

up with the cyberverse things, I'm kinda keeping

up with the cartoon trailers. I don't particularly

care for the voice cast that I've seen so far,

or I've heard so far. I do know someone that's

actually in the voice cast. We're not going to

talk about that here. But he's playing a certain

classic character. So I can't wait to actually

reveal the voice cast, haven't they? They have.

And he is credited on IMDB as doing it. But I

don't want to say anything just yet, because

I don't know. But for me right now, when it comes

to Transformers, I'm happy with rewatching the

cartoons that I enjoy, and I'm loving reading

the IDW stuff because I'm going through it with

the pull bag. We just finished Autobotly August

on the pull bag in here on All Things Transformers.

The IDW universe is ending so there is an endpoint

for the current IDW universe And they're going

to relaunch or whatever you want to call it next

year with something different something new and

I like that I think that's good that they're

giving the the writers and the artists that have

been on this journey since 2011 2012 whatever

it's been you know the last seven eight nine

years or even longer than that actually because

it goes all the way back to The Andy Schmidt

days of IDW. So it's actually been 12 or 13 years

in total. But since I've known the series, it's

been 2011, 2012, something like that. And they're

actually giving it a finite ending point. They

waited until the very end until they realized,

oh, well, what are we going to do? We're gonna

bring in the biggest bad in Transformers history

and we're gonna have Unicron destroy everything.

And I think that's a cool angle. I'm loving reading

the stuff and it's just so fun. James Roberts

is an amazing, amazing writer. He writes the

More Than Meets the Eye slash Lost Light series.

It was first More Than Meets the Eye then it

is now currently called Lost Light. I mean, that

is some amazing writing. Don't think I've ever

seen transformers writing as good as what he

has done in the story that he is telling So that's

kind of where I am with transformers. I'm not

really It isn't like you know ten years ago when

I started podcasting and I was super still into

it and and Whatever it it's just there for me

when it comes to any of the news or anything

it like Think I've seen the one bumblebee trailer

that they have if they have a trailer yet I don't

even know at this point like I'm not paying any

attention to any of the movie stuff. I If I see

it I see it if I don't I don't and I'm not any

worse for where for it I guess Yeah, I've seen

the the trailer for the film One of them. I think

maybe even two. I don't know they've they've

had a few I'm not really following it because

I really don't intend on seeing the film. The

live -action films just don't resonate with me

and so I have decided, especially after the previous

one, that I'm done. And I've started doing that

with a lot of films now. Even other franchises

like Super Heroes, Marvel, DC, like if there's

certain characters I just, I'm signing out because

I just, I don't care anymore. Part of it's age,

part of it's the fact that I realize they're

going to keep reinventing it, and my era of it,

just like your era of it, is gone. Well, that's

the thing. It's not gone. It's just not the current

era. We still have it. No. See, this is not on

you, and I'm sorry. I'm sorry. This is not about

you, about what you just said. The fact that

people seem to think that whatever's current

means that everything that came before it is

gone, that's ridiculous. We still have, like

I just said, I just was rewatching Beast Machines

last week, like... No, and that's part of the

problem with a lot of the franchises, whether

it's Transformers, Star Trek, or anything else,

is everybody acts like the newest iteration is

canon and everything before it is gone, like

terminated, destroyed, nonexistent, didn't exist

before this. And that's where it's kind of wrong.

It's more so that it's not the current series,

like you said, and it's just, it's not what's

in the now. scenario and so it's kind of not

looked upon as like this great thing anymore

and people are like oh this new one's great and

it's like but is it is it really like we'll see

in another 10 years and then see how you really

feel but at the same time it's this generation's

you know whatever version of Transformers that

you know we grew up with I mean I know you grew

up with G1 and I grew up with Beast Wars and

G1 Because around the same time the sci -fi channel

had reruns of G1 on and I watched them both I

was first introduced to Beast Wars on the premiere

episode and So I'm grateful for that but as far

as the cyber verse is concerned though The animation

I do like the fact that they brought noses back.

Yeah, which we haven't seen since animated Yep

It looks like if you took transformers animated

and You mixed it with Tron uprising animation.

Mm -hmm and which I wish that they would have

gone a different direction graphically because

I Think that they kind of screwed the poo charity

with the Trump transformers robots in disguise

2015 that came out And they already had this

kind of animation style, although it didn't look

like they mixed animated and robots or rescue

bots and Tron uprising together like this. Yeah.

I think that they're going for a different dynamic.

They're trying to do the cyber verse, which correct

me if I'm wrong, but like the the in network

and the online and all these cyber verse things.

Wasn't that something in the late 90s? I. Cuz

like they had Mega Man Battle Network. You're

asking the wrong person. They had Mega Man Battle

Network. They had all these like weird Oh, Cyberverse

or Unlimited or Extreme. I mean, this is like

the new era of that Recycled from the the late

90s to be used in the late, you know 20 teens

here and it's it's kind of hilarious, but So

just going through my plethora of things, I know

Cartoon Network has the first two episodes that

you can watch on their website or on an app,

which I intend to do shortly thereafter and have

a review on the next episode, not necessarily

right now. I'm going to do basically a breakdown

of the voice cast, what I think of the story

so far, the animation so far, which just basing

off images and not having watched any of the

preview clips, the animation just looks kind

of bleh to me. Just because I just don't, I've

never liked, although I will say I like it a

lot more than that's Thundercats Go or whatever

that is. I would take this any day. So, and I

say the bleh part because I just, I'm tired of

this aesthetic that they're kind of going for

the cheap and look and So anyways The animation

looks kind of fluid and you know very stylistic

to you know the robots in disguise basically

Bumblebee is doing the radio conversation again

like the films which I think is total garbage

Give him a voice just stop doing that like I

like that they gave him his original face back

in his head And in the new movie they gave them

the Volkswagen again because Volkswagen got their

head out of their rear and decided that it was

a good idea to let Transformers brand themselves

with the product because GM made it a lucrative

thing. We have Bumblebee not so serious. He's

got memory loss, total memory loss. Not knowing

who Thundercracker, Windblade are and Windblade

is supposed to be a... shoved down our throat

character that they've been doing since No, okay,

she's really not in the animation she is Maybe

in the comics not But they've been really pushing

this character like hardcore and In the the prime

wars trilogy and in this Whereas before she didn't

really exist to some degree Well, for those that

don't know, Windblade was the fan voted character

a few years ago, I think it was 2015, a number

of years ago now, 2014 -2015. She was the winner

of the fan vote. They then put her in the IDW

comics, they gave her her own four -issue miniseries

written by Margaret Scott, art by Sarah Stone.

She then went on to do other things within the

comics universe and then Hasbro's like, oh, okay,

we'll bring her over to the cartoon, we'll give

her toys, we'll do this, we'll do that. I don't

necessarily feel like she's been forced down

our throats. She's a character in the cartoon

just like any other character shows up in a cartoon.

I mean... It's not like They're making her the

main character and not having optimus or bumblebee

or like I can see you saying that night You mean

like the Star Trek discovery where they've shoved

down the character that's supposed to be Scott's

their box sister No, I don't want Star Trek so

that I feel has been shoved down But more so

than this, but no, I mean I get what you're saying

And I'm not saying that they shouldn't have female

representation characters, but technically the

Transformers are supposed to be genderless anyway,

but the whole thing with me is not that they

had other characters to necessarily pull from,

but that they keep recycling the same set of

characters over and over and over, and making

Bumblebee like this Prime. you know character

and i'm not saying that they can't keep reusing

names for like trademark purposes or whatever

but it's it's kind of like they they went the

last series without having prime in it for the

most part they didn't have megatron at all um

which i was hoping it would come in for the last

episode but they they kind of played different

on that series which was which was nice but at

the same time annoying and i i know i'm kind

of like double you know kind of not really I'm

being hypocritical with my comment here, but

in that I want them to do something different,

but it's more so the Autobots never change Like

I see a new cast of Autobots or at least like

lightly featured Autobots take the prime Stands

here instead of like a retooled Grimlock instead

of bumblebee instead of prime instead of windblag

instead of majority of these characters that

keep popping up and going against Decepticons

like At least in the comics, you get like a variation

of different people that just constantly pop

up. Well, yeah, okay, so currently in the comics,

what I'm reading currently, what I've covered

on the pull bag to this point, we've covered

both Lost Light and Optimus Prime, because those

are the two series that are, two ongoings that

are currently going. We've covered the first

two volumes of each of those series. As of right

now Bumble as of right now what I'm reading Bumblebee

is still dead They killed Bumblebee a while ago

at this point in the comics, so he's still dead

Okay, I know he comes back eventually Somehow

some way. I don't know yet. I haven't read that

far ahead so like That's why I love the IDW comics

like it's not just reimaginings of the characters.

We know and love from G1 It's building a story

with those characters and giving those characters

new interesting ways to be impressed upon us.

I don't know, that's... But kind of going back

into the cyberverse thing, Thundercracker doesn't

speak at all, he just grunts. There's gonna be

a number of characters that go unvoiced in this

by the way Some could use it but boulder media

studio is what's doing transformers cyberverse

as it's airing on Cartoon Network and They they

went which I'm thankful they went towards the

designs for the Decepticons Megatron Soundwave

Starscream and Bumblebee and prime are direct

homages to the 84 series Which I'm glad and it'll

be a welcome nod to see like updated versions

but still very very very similar in style and

I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with

it and I'll give it a shot I'm not gonna like

outright just shoot this down but Guess what

they're what they're saying to is that they they

when they were designing these they were inspired

by the classic clean Appearance of the original

g1 style as opposed to like all these like high

techy ones that we get now Mmm, so that's the

design that they fell in love with in the 80s

and felt was a perfect fit for the new origin

story They also have Jeremy Levy as bumblebee

I guess when he does speak Jake Tillman as Optimus

Prime Ryan Andy's voices Grimlock Sophia Isabella

is Windblade Mark Thompson is Megatron, Billy

Bob Thompson is Starscream and also does Ryan

Andes also does Shockwave and Deanna McGovern

is Shadow Striker So it'll be interesting to

see what they do with this And it's starting

to air all over the place, but I know that the

toys are starting to show up in the stores, which

I'll enjoy kind of trying to look at and see

how they look in person. Yeah. Just to kind of

get a feel for what they're going to do with

these characters, how they're going to look,

whether they look cheap, whether they look kind

of chincy. It's hard to say unless unless you

really see them But yeah, I'm kind of looking

forward to seeing that I'm treating it as I treat

a lot of things that I don't pay attention to

I'll get around to it when I get around to it

I have no interest currently to check it out

at all I've seen the one little trailer that

they've done or whatever and it does not impress

me much Did you see that there there's high -res

promotional posters for War for Cybertron Siege.

Oh, really? No, I had not seen that, no. It looks

like it's another one focusing on Prime himself.

I don't know if this is for like a new game,

but they make it sound like that. It's War for

Cybertron Trilogy Siege. So it would make sense

because they had, what was it? War for Cybertron,

Fall of Cybertron. and then whatever this one

would be. So I'm kind of excited to see if this

actually turns out to be a video game or not.

Very cool. Then we got David Sobolev doing Blitzwing.

You mean Starscream. No, I know, it looks like

Starscream, but they're just like, oh, it's Blitzwing.

I think it would have been nicer to have him

as Starscream, but I guess they didn't want to

confuse people. Even though they're gonna reboot

the universe anyway after this film Yeah, but

he did, you know shockwave and transformers prime

and depth charge in Beast Wars. Mm -hmm I'd love

to see a dude take on depth charge again. Yeah

him and his fish pants So, yeah, that's that's

pretty cool So yeah, I don't know They get the

first five episodes titled By this point already

like two of them have aired or one of them have

aired or something but fractured memory all spark

the journey and white out are the Yeah, so And

I know that they're gonna have the arc and it

looks very original They have to do like this

this, you know putting the puzzle pieces together

thing for Bumblebee's memories as they like jot

them together like to rebuild them. So we'll

see how this looks. On a happier tone though,

Masterpiece MP41 Dinobot. They've got photos

up of online. Looks kind of cool. They show on

TFW. They've got these these pictures of it from

TF source where It looks like it's got like a

slight recolor or something from I don't know

if he was originally 41 but I know Megatron is

40 so I'm wondering if this was A slight retool,

but there's some some new Photos of him on there

like action poses where they kind of built out

some Beast Wars scenery and have him standing

next to Cheetor in Optimus Primal. Oh, cool.

It looks pretty sweet, and they kind of put him

in this, you know, Code of the Hero looking pose

at one particular point, with the sun beaming

behind him. Yeah. And, you know, getting ready

to jump into battle, so it looks pretty spectacular.

And then there's actually an expansion pack for

him. Hmm. Shockwave lab SL 31 it's a weapons

and accessory kit for for Dinobot and It's from

coming at the fusors very cool, you know where

he's got the the belt of the ammunition that

goes around his chest the Yeah, the ammo stick

thing the The fasteners and then they've got

the the giant rifle Which which I think you know,

so you can build out like the platform where

he actually take You know opens up the part of

the arc and you can you can mount his tail and

his sword the energon or primals Katanas you

can put the the rifle on it Cheat orders extra

ammo so it builds out that wall that slides out

of the arc or out of the axel on Very cool, so

I thought that was kind of kind of interesting

that this this was a part of that as well Which

if I was to get that that would be something

I'd want but I'm gonna have to see if I can get

Megatron And speaking of movies and everything

else Transformers the movie the 30th or whatever

it is the The first time in theaters, one night

only. It actually got 300 more theaters here

in the U .S. and in select theaters in Canada.

So this is very big and I cannot wait to go to

this. It's just... dream come true to be able

to see this thing on the big screen because I

was I was only six at the time when it came out

I've said this before I did not actually see

this until after I saw Duke not die in the GI

Joe movie I saw that before I saw Transformers

the movie so I just I cannot wait until the 27th

of this month to go see this but yes it is It's

added 300 more theaters in the U .S. and it also

includes certain Canadian screenings as well.

On the one hand, I would be interested in seeing

it. Like I said before. But on the other hand,

I don't because I own it. Not that it's not something

I wouldn't want to see in theater or have seen

at some point. I was recently invited to an event

that was Star Trek in nature and it's a local

science museum later this month and I have to

choose nights and so that was the night I chose.

But yeah, I mean it's kind of awesome that it's

actually going to be in theater again for those

that are able to go and want to go. Just for

you and for everybody else that wants to know,

it's basically War for Cybertron Siege. It's

a toy line. It's yeah, it's war for Cybertron

siege is a sublime imprint of the generations

toy line the first portion of the war for Cybertron

trilogy First revealed in mid 2018 at San Diego

Comic -Con war for Cybertron siege in keeping

with the installments of the prime wars trilogy

Features a line -wide gimmick weaponry most deluxe

Voyager and leader class figures each come with

at least two weapons that can transform Combine

and or be placed into any combat poses So it's

a toy line. I was hoping that it would be you

know An actual game or a cartoon or something

If it was a game man, I would be all over that

but yeah, yeah I haven't played it in a while,

but now that I've had a smartphone for a while

now I finally was able to check out Transformers

Earth Wars It's okay. The best thing it has going

for it in my mind is the fact that they have

the G1 cartoon music in it Like that's the coolest

thing for me in that game. I Don't know the rest

of it's alright. I've played it like four times

and I Whatever. I used to have it installed on

my phone. Mm -hmm most and I have I have Beast

Wars Megatron, which isn't actually Beast Wars

Megatron They have like Transmetal Megatron in

there as well They have like Scourge. They have

you know a variety of those those type characters

There's also Forge to Fight, but I never got

into that But Earth Wars yeah, I mean I played

it for a little bit and then like you could get

you know Rodimus you could get Ultra Magnus you

could get just about anybody you can think of

that's in the Transformers universe. You can

do combiners You can do the cyber planet keys

basically in a sense on the characters and build

a base and whatever but I got to a certain point

and it just got to be like the only way you were

going to succeed was if you dump money into it

and I was like mmm I'm good and then I installed

it Which was which was sad because I dumped a

lot of time into that Yeah, I didn't dump as

much time as you did I checked it out. I thought

it was cool and It's still on my phone, but I

probably won't play it much more if at all. I'll

probably try and download it again and try and

play it just to kind of see. But yeah, I don't

know. I'm kind of still in that phase of just

not really wanting to play games anymore or play

games on my phone. So like if I saw it on...

Like some of the War for Cybertron or some of

those games on that one site. It's a streaming

site that you can download stuff from Steam.

Then I would probably get it. But I, you know,

just don't kind of care anymore. Yeah, I'm in

the same way. So. I think that's gonna do it.

I think so too. So do you guys think that Transformers

has jumped the shark, or is it just us? Or is

it just a thing that it constantly transforms

and changes and we're just getting out of that...

that span of where it's marketed towards us or

anything to do with us anymore. We're getting

told for this... You might as well have just

said it, you dropped worse in the beginning.

It's definitely something that has definitely

changed. Sound off in the comments on the website

or on Facebook or Twitter. You can get ahold

of me on Twitter at scp21 and yourself, sir.

I'm at TF2 and Mike. I very rarely use Twitter

anymore sadly. I You know why it's a whole other

thing Not really no, I use Twitter I don't use

Facebook. I hate Facebook. I Hate it anyway Boo

So until next time Transform and transcend and

we're gonna get the out of here oh yes leave

get out of my house yeah