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The appeal of the Cyberverse show has grown within the fandom as a great new entry in the history of Transformers cartoons. Fun for all ages and has some deep cuts to Transformers lore along with new characters, making it the best G1 reboot we've ever gotten outside of the comics. And now it is coming to a close with the first part of the two part finale now online. And speaking of comics, this is the first time we see the Tarn design used in another storytelling medium.
Any fan who has given up on the show should at least give this one the ten minute watch just to see how much the series has grown and how all encompassing it is for what we all saw as a small show. Or just to see their interpretation of Astrotrain.
The Netflix Transformers War for Cybertron Siege series is being well recieved by many fans and critics but you may be curious as to what some of the most prominant Optimus Prime voice actors had to say about it.
Firstly we have Garry Chalk, who was the voice of Optimus Primal in Beast wars and the voice of Optimus Prime in the Unicron Trilogy. Here is what he stated on Facebook:
"Ok I watched the first episode of the new Transformers on Netflix .....um...
Everyone tries to sound like a tough guy and as a result they all have the same pace and delivery. Visually it's pretty good but I am sorry the voices were kind of low energy."
And then we have Peter Cullen who was asked how he felt about other people doing Optimus Prime back in March (when conventions were still a thing that happened). He specifically mentions the Netflix series when mentioning that it hurts that he isn't the one doing Optimus Prime and that it is wrong for the production to be using non union talent in order to cut costs. You can tell he cares deeply for the character he voices and his legacy. Now, while it may seem like he is speaking ill of other voice actors or of the idea of others being Prime, his emotional responses are really towards the producers who are using cost cutting tactics that may hurt actors' wellfare in general. Frank Welker, the voice of G1 Megatron, also shares how wrong he feels it is for others to be hired when the known voice actors are available and willing to work.
Netflix and Siege
A Review of Transformers: War for Cybertron, "Chapter One: Siege"
Spoiler Free-ish Images in this review courtesy of Netflix
In a mere two days' time Transformers fans will finally get to watch the highly anticipated, much speculated about first chapter of the Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy, known as "Chapter One: Siege". You'll need a Netflix account to stream the show's 6 episodes, and in case you need a brief overview, here's the official synopsis provided by Netflix:
It is the final hours of the devastating civil war between the Autobots and Decepticons. The war that has torn apart their home planet of Cybertron is at a tipping point. Two leaders, Optimus Prime and Megatron, both want to save their world and unify their people, but only on their own terms. In an attempt to end the conflict, Megatron is forced to consider using the Allspark, the source of all life and power on Cybertron, to “reformat” the Autobots, thus “unifying” Cybertron. Outnumbered, outgunned, and under SIEGE, the battle-weary Autobots orchestrate a desperate series of counterstrikes on a mission that, if everything somehow goes right, will end with an unthinkable choice: kill their planet in order to save it.
After the debacle that was the Prime Wars trilogy of streaming shows, fans looking for something different in (perceived) tone from the outstanding Transformers: Cyberverse have eagerly awaited the arrival of this latest installment. Many of us are happy to see toys that we've had for a year and a half reach the silver screen. All of us are wondering if it will be good - read on to find out.
The main plot of the series is summed up well in the synopsis above, and most fans will likely find the "30,000 foot view" of the plot to be about what's expected. While stories about the end of the war on Cybertron are as old as the franchise itself, the past decade or so has created so many disconnected permutations of this story that it's starting to become Transformers' version of Bruce Wayne's parents being killed. It makes sense for this first chapter to play things relatively safe in this context, given the amount of casual fans likely to be exposed to this series that haven't experienced the wide combination of movies, video games, books and other Transformers TV shows covering the same general story as much as those hanging out here on Seibertron.com on a daily basis have in recent history. For the most part, the good guys are the Autobots, the bad guys are the Decepticons, they're in a war which is bad and has been long, and events occur with big, sweeping consequences for the Transformers. The show keeps it simple on a high level, and to be honest, it works.
Those backgrounds are nice.
One of the reasons the somewhat standard main plot works is because the side plots with tighter character focus are then able to grasp the spotlight and provide the series' most compelling moments. The first hour of the show does feature a great deal of talking and walking but it's worth sitting through because the characters you should really be paying attention to, such as Jetfire and Bumblebee, gain foundational characterization that pays off as the episodes progress. The cast is a little big and there's maybe one "B" plot too many running in the middle of this first chapter given its length, but this isn't a problem that sticks around for long.
Slow and low
The aforementioned cast of characters is kept somewhat small and if you're expecting anyone that doesn't have a Siege toy, temper that expectation now. Heck, if you're expecting any Battle Masters or Micromasters from the toy line, I'm going to go ahead and bring you that disappointment now too, because they're not present. Optimus Prime and Megatron receive the most spotlight as expected, with Jake Foushee reprising his role as Optimus Prime after performing him in Cyberverse. It's one of the weaker Optimus Prime performances that I can recall, but Foushee does kick some more emotion in nicely during some of the more action-packed sequences. Marnocha's Megatron sounds tired, which feels character appropriate, but is overall so low and slow that if you were only listening to audio you might mistake the character for Unicron or some other giant Transformer. It's worth noting this could be entirely on the provided direction and not the actor himself, to be fair.
Thankfully, there are standout voice performances surrounding the sub-par ones. Keith Silverstein brings in a fantastic performance as Jetfire, layering in his experiences playing Char Aznable in another globally huge robot franchise to create a take on the character that feels fresh while carrying appropriate emotion. Georgia Reed delivers punchy lines as Chromia in another more subtly notable performance, to me at least, while Frank Todaro's Starscream has evolved into one of the best interpretations of Chris Latta's original take on the character's voice that's ever been recorded.
Now if voice director Philip Bache could just get everyone to actually enunciate the first "r" in "Cybertron" we'll be getting somewhere very good.
Just enough transforming and rolling out. Usually.
Transformers shows are notoriously limited by budget constraints, as making complex CGI models of robots transform into CGI models of vehicles is, presumably, complicated and expensive. There's just enough transforming most of the time that it feels appropriately present throughout, and sometimes this is accomplished through clever-ish use of smoke and other camera panning effects leaving your imagination to fill in the rest. It works fine and is preferable to skipping out on opportunities to have the Transformers, you know, transform. There was only one moment early on where I wanted to pull my hair out because the Autobots were running away on foot from Decepticons, some with flying alt modes, who were also chasing them on foot. The rest of the animation is fine with the movements of characters looking infinitely better than what was seen in Prime Wars, though not quite as nice as other recent forebears such as Transformers: Prime or even Cyberverse with the characters in "Siege" moving their hands a little too much, too often while they speak. The backgrounds are also positively gorgeous at times, with large, sweeping vistas and massive buildings giving Cybertron a sense of grandeur and scale. Occasionally the characters stand out oddly against them, but this was something I only noticed once or twice during interior shots.
I'm going long on this part of the review, but need to mention that the action and battle sequences are crisp, busy, and ultimately quite satisfying.
Always a look of dull surprise...
If there's one thing I found to be a let down, it's the sound. The balance of voices to background music and sound effects was occasionally off, and I had to turn up my 5.1 system temporarily at times to make out what some characters were saying. The classic transformation sound effect from G1 is used effectively in some places, but they forgot to sample more than one version of it making me wonder why they even bothered at all. It's something that should be done with differences in tempo, levels and duration based on the character and what they transform into but here, a lazy, one-size-fits-all approach was used. Edward Bosco's voice performance as Soundwave is ruined by a poor attempt at his voice effect but at least he also plays Ultra Magnus well, proving he's not a slouch. The musical score by Alexander Bornstein is entirely forgettable and sounds like the Tron: Legacy score by Daft Punk was cut into small samples to avoid a lawsuit then rearranged into a generic bore-fest that adds no emotion to anything at any point. My apologies to Mr. Bornstein if generic, derivative music that sounds like everything else while also sounding like nothing whatsoever was precisely the musical direction desired by Hasbro and Netflix.
Producers of Transformers shows, if you take nothing else from this review, please take this: just hire Vince DiCola next time. Barring that, hire a good Synthwave artist that can provide some exciting electronic scoring to go with the action.
Verdict Pictured here: the fandom after watching the "Prime Wars" trilogy
:exhales:
It doesn't suck.
All I wanted was for this show to not suck, and it achieves that. The wider story is a bit blasé to this long time Transformers fan who rabidly consumes its media, but the side plots and character work help elevate it. Some of the character models are re-used as generics far too often, but the overall nice visuals make me care less about that. The voice performances are hit or miss and the score is terrible but excellent all-around work on characters like Jetfire, Ratchet, Mirage and even Impactor lead me to forgive. The really important thing here is that it was a fun watch that doesn't ask for a ton of your time. You'll have about 2.5 hours sometime in the next week where the Transformers will entertain you, and for many fans, that's a big increase.
I considered going a notch higher on the score below, but "Tarnhauser Gate" was too cringe-worthy to let go without some punishment.
Final Score . ½
out of
Seibertron.com was provided with complimentary advance screening access to Transformers Chapter One: Siege by Netflix for the purpose of this review. "Thank you" to Netflix and Hasbro for this access!
SDCC at home has been happening this week-end and while Hasbro is not part of it, both IDW and Rooster Teeth had panels of their own where they discussed Transformers. For IDW, we had John Barber and Chris Ryal (who will soon be leaving the company) discussing the future of the brand within IDW. With Rooster Teeth, we got an exclusive clip featuring Cliffjumper. They also stated that the Netflix series is not a continuity of its own, it is part of the wider G1 story. That discussion starts at around the 18 minute mark.
You can watch both videos below. We also have a video from the Robocon 2020 virtual con Transformers Netflix panel that was also released yesterday featuring the show runner and voice actors.
Thanks to our own Sabrblade, we have some interesting news about the
Armada episode 'Remorse'- a second English dub of the episode had been discovered!
Wait.... Armada? And an episode that aired nearly 17 years ago?? Apparently, it was discovered that a streaming service, TubiTV, used the Shout Factory version of the Armada series (instead of the original release on Rhino DVD) and in that episode, a second English dub was discovered that slightly changes some plot details, as well as some lines changing significantly. Read on to discover what Sabrblade found out.
Sabrblade wrote:Soooo... here's something we never knew existed.
According to a discussion on this TFWiki talk page, a discovery has been made that episode 40 of Armada, "Remorse", was given a second English dub that contains some lines altered from its original English version, as well as the Unicron Battles version of the opening that original premiered with episode 41 instead.
The new lines that have been changed feature a new filter on the Autobots' voices that make them sound even more metallic and monotone than before, and now their dialogue mentions Smokescreen's name having been changed to Hoist two episodes earlier than when his name change was first brought up in Episode 42.
Further details on this are as follows:
Fred had his first line extended from "Is there any way we can fix Optimus?" to add, "the way we fixed up Smokescreen? I mean Hoist?", which required starting the line sooner and made his speech overlap with the animation of him just crying. Red Alert's response was then rewritten some to fit in another mention of Smokescreen's deal, going from...
"I'm sorry. It can't be done. Optimus's body released its Spark when it blocked the Hydra Cannon's blast, and without it, there's no way we can bring him back. I wish there was some way we could, but we're just going to have to pull ourselves together and carry on without him."
to...
"No. I'm sorry, we can't. Optimus's body released its Spark when it blocked the Hydra Cannon. We saved Smokescreen's Spark and were able to reformat him into Hoist. I wish there was some way that we could but... we're just going to have to carry on without him."
And sure enough, in the next scene, "Try and be more careful, Smokescreen!" was replaced with, "Please, try and be more careful, Hoist."
This discovery was first found on the Tubi TV streaming version of the episode, and has now been confirmed on Twitter to also exist on the Shout! Factory DVD release of the series, while the original Rhino DVD release had only the first dub version.
This makes me wonder if there might have been any other dub changes made at the time in any other episodes, which could also be found on the Shout! Factory DVD set.
Have any of you Armada fans noticed anything similar, if you have both DVD releases? Let us know below!
We're hours away from Hasbro's latest Fan First Friday featuring Transformers. Thanks to our own Seibertronians Sentinel_Primal and King Kuuga for bringing our attention to the image that appears to have originated on Planet Iacon on Facebook. We're being treated to our first (and relatively small) look at Earthrise exclusive 2-packs featuring Autobots Prowl and Ironhide and Decepticons Ramjet and Dirge. Ironhide appears to be an extensive retool of the the Siege figure worked into a new Earth mode van while Prowl is a slight retool of Smokescreen. Ramjet and Dirge are retools of Starscream with reworked wings and heads. Unfortunately Ramjet doesn't come with his classic missiles, but the arm guns are cartoon accurate for bot mode. Both sets are expected to be Amazon exclusives similar to the sets from last year for Siege.
I know I'm convinced by Ironhide's retooling but what do you think of him and the other three figures found in theses sets? Let us know in the Energon Pub forums!
We have two fun Netflix Transformers series related tidbits to share. Firstly, as a few members have informed us, such as Mindmaster and Verno, that the cybertronian letters in the posters we recently saw spell out Kingdom, which is the name of the third part of the War for Cybertron trilogy, according to the rumours we posted earlier. Transformers fan Protoman made a nice photo to show this, which you can see below.
Secondly we have a brand new Japanese trailer for the series, which Sabrblade sent our way. You can view it here.
Sabrblade wrote:
Japanese trailer, featuring all new footage.
Note that the characters all use their Hasbro names, so no "Convoy", "Bumble", "Cybertron", "Destron", etc. It's all "Optimus Prime", "Bumblebee", "Autobot", "Decepticon", etc.
Thanks go to Hasbro (and fellow Seibertronian Aronjlove) for letting us know that the final trailer for the quickly approaching War for Cybertron: Siege series is available to view!
Netflix and Hasbro, Inc., in partnership with Rooster Teeth, today released the final main trailer for Chapter One of the highly anticipated TRANSFORMERS: WAR FOR CYBERTRON TRILOGY, premiering on Netflix July 30, 2020. The Series raises the stakes of the Autobot and Decepticon war with Chapter One having six, twenty-two minute episodes, complete with a new animation look and style that presents the TRANSFORMERS bots like you’ve never seen them before. The TRANSFORMERS: WAR FOR CYBERTRON TRILOGY plunges us deep into events that live at the heart of this legendary franchise, with SIEGE shining a spotlight on a critical timeframe in TRANSFORMERS history on Cybertron.
TRANSFORMERS: WAR FOR CYBERTRON TRILOGY: SIEGE begins in the final hours of the devastating civil war between the Autobots and Decepticons. The war that has torn apart their home planet of Cybertron is at a tipping point. Two leaders, Optimus Prime and Megatron, both want to save their world and unify their people, but only on their own terms. In an attempt to end the conflict, Megatron is forced to consider using the Allspark, the source of all life and power on Cybertron, to “reformat” the Autobots, thus “unifying” Cybertron. Outnumbered, outgunned, and under SIEGE, the battle-weary Autobots orchestrate a desperate series of counterstrikes on a mission that, if everything somehow goes right, will end with an unthinkable choice: kill their planet in order to save it.
Rooster Teeth (RWBY, gen:LOCK) is producing the original series for Netflix, and Polygon Pictures (Godzilla, Knights of Sidonia) is serving as the animation studio. TRANSFORMERS veteran F.J. DeSanto (Transformers: Titans Return, Transformers: Power of the Primes) is serving as showrunner on the series with several contributing writers, including George Krstic (Megas XLR), Gavin Hignight (Transformers: Cyberverse), and Brandon Easton (Agent Carter, Transformers: Rescue Bots).
The Series voice talent cast includes Jake Foushee (Optimus Prime), Jason Marnocha (Megatron), Linsay Rousseau (Elita-1), Joe Zieja (Bumblebee), Frank Todaro (Starscream), Rafael Goldstein (Ratchet), Keith Silverstein (Jetfire), Todd Haberkorn (Shockwave, Red Alert), Edward Bosco (Ultra Magnus, Soundwave), Bill Rogers (Wheeljack), Sophia Isabella (Arcee), Brook Chalmers (Impactor), Shawn Hawkins (Mirage), Kaiser Johnson (Ironhide), Miles Luna (Teletraan I, Cliffjumper) and Mark Whitten (Sideswipe, Skywarp).
Not only that, but the communication from Hasbro included this final line
More details regarding Chapter Two, TRANSFORMERS: WAR FOR CYBERTRON TRILOGY: EARTHRISE and Chapter Three coming soon.
This confirms that we're not only getting an Earthrise cartoon, but we may learn the title of the final chapter in the War for Cybertron Trilogy sooner than we think!
July 30th can't come soon enough! What do you think, fellow Seibertronians? Let us know in the comments below!
Date: Thursday, July 2nd 2020 12:55pm CDT Category:Cartoon News Posted by:ZeroWolf | Credit(s): CyclonusG1 from Seibertron, Transformers Official Social Media
Greetings Seibertronians! Fellow Seibertron user, CyclonusG1, has informed us that over on the Transformers Official Instagram, they've released three new images to promote the Netflix exclusive Transformers Siege cartoon that premiers this month. The three images give us a good look at Ultra Magnus, Bumblebee and Elita-1. What's interesting in the case of the latter two, these could give us hints as to what their toy forms may look like. As so far, from all the promotional material, the models used stay very close to toy designs.
What do you think of these? Looking forward to this new cartoon? Let us know in the Energon Pub and stay tuned to Seibertron for all the latest news and reviews!
Greetings Seibertronians. Today we bring you somber news as it appears that Rescue Bots Academy is coming to an end. One of the creators of the hit show have taken to twitter to thank all those that have worked on the series over at Boulder Media.
This isn't just the end of the show though, but, unless Hasbro announce a continuation of sorts, this is the end of the Aligned Universe. Aligned started with the shows Transformers Prime and the original Rescue Bots, with the Activisions two Cybertron games also falling into this universes story line. Robots in Disguise 2015 carried the Prime storyline on until its own cancellation, leaving Rescue Bots and Rescue Bots Academy to fly the flag for Aligned.
This is the original tweet by Pete Slattery.
Pete Slattery wrote:Today, I finish the first show I've directed. Three years, 104 episodes, an experience I won't forget. This was our team at the height of our power. An incredibly talented & enthusiastic bunch of artists. I'll miss them! #rescuebotsacademy #Transformers https://t.co/Fh7fnzGZFn
The series still has some episodes left to air before its end.
Have you been enjoying the run of Rescue Bots Academy? Let us know in the Energon Pub and stay tuned to Seibertron for all the latest news and reviews.
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