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First impression -- this feels like a rush job. There were
some really good ideas that just didn't come off very well.
For example, I like how they really tried to get across the scale of
the robots by having them just stand there around the kids.
But a lot of the time the perspective was skewed. The drawings
of the robots were mis-proportional and crappy sometimes. I
appreciated how the show wasn't over-orchestrated like RiD
was. There were periods where there was absolutely no music,
and that pleased the hell out of me. Gave it sort of a movie
feel, I guess. And the music that was there was
passable. It was music, which is more than what I can say for
that washed-out stuff in the background during any given episode of
RiD. And that new TF theme is nice. I want to see an
opening sequence, dammit! Hopefully it'll be something
original and not a bunch of clips thrown together.
Well, I liked things better the second time around. Things
that bugged me the first time didn't bug me as much the second
time. I was a little put off by Rad being able to read
Cybertronian text and understanding Mini-Cons, but then he admitted
he was making it all up -- I didn't catch that the firs time.
Oh wait, that makes me feel insulted instead of worried.
But, honestly, all of the problems I have this show can be
distilled down to two things:
1) There is a distinct lack of effort put into the
animation. It can go from really stunning to really crappy in
a moment. And unfortunately almost all of the parts with the
robots were done poorly. The most insulting part of all of
this is that many times things aren't animated traditionally,
especially during fight scenes. Fight scenes were bad.
Instead of some of the awesome fight sequences you'd hope for,
Megatron and Prime are just holding hands. HOLDING
HANDS! How sweet... There's too heavy of a reliance on
digital zooming and rotation in lieu of actual drawings. And
it's incredibly obvious every time they take these shortcuts.
Proportions and scale are out of whack. The transitions are
too "smooth". And you'd think the time they saved
animating would go into better detail, but sadly this is not the
case. It's sloppy. It's like reading an interesting
story by someone who can't spell and uses terrible grammar -- the
content might be interesting, but the technical issues turn you off
to it. I wasn't even paying attention to the last half of the
show the first time I watched it. That's good, because the
last "episode" had some of the worst animation in
it. When Demolishor and Starscream have it out on the moon, a
really badly animated Demolishor "falls" out of the frame
-- digitally sliding. Then he's suddenly in vehicle
form. And when he changes back they just reverse the sequence.
Please. Please compare it to G1. Please compare it to
a show that first aired 18 years ago. That would just make my
day.
2) It's another dub job. It's a show by a Japanese
company. I'm a little angry that the market where Transformers
was driven to the ground is responsible for the show we're
getting. Strangely, Car Robots didn't do too well over there,
but it was quite successful over here. Sure, Takara and Hasbro
joining forces might seem like a good, money-saving idea, but we
really are two separate markets. But what bugs me the most is
that instead of getting fun comraderies between voice actors like in
Beast Wars or Beast Machines, we get choppy, wooden, and sometimes
nonsensical performances from the voice actors. Part of that
is bad translation / writing, the other part is bad direction.
Oh, there were some really funny lines, but such things weren't
enough to carry my interest throughout RiD, and unless something
happens it won't be enough here either. I had hoped that
Gar(r)y Chalk and David Kaye would alter their voices from their
Beast Wars counterparts, but sadly this is not the case. I
keep hearing Primal. I keep hearing Predacon Megatron.
Hopefully differences in the character will suffice where voices
aren't different enough.
Really, this felt like three different shows. First was the
really cool G1-ish Transformers show. The whole opening
narration was cool. The bit where the signal reaches Cybertron
was cool. Did you catch all the cameos?
Shot 1: a guy who looks like hound or one of the Combaticons(left), ?
(front), Ironhide? (back)
Shot 2: Powerglide (left), Red Alert (lower right), Windcharger
(upper right)
Shot 3: ? looks familiar (far left), Beachcomber (left),
Jetfire (background), ? (foreground)
Shot 4: Strafe
Shot 5: no idea
But regardless, I though we were in for a different show.
Then there was the part that felt like Digimon, which was almost
anything with the kids. And lastly, once the Autobots and
Decepticons showed up on Earth... I guess... I don't know what it
was like, but it wasn't like either of the other things.
Honestly, I could be happy with any one of these things provided
that they pick only ONE.
Well, my impression of these episodes is incredibly luke-warm.
Really well-animated and funny parts are offset by bad animation,
bad exposition, and just poor writing. I'm pretty sure the
Japanese studio, Aeon, is responsible for most of this (the good AND
the bad), but I also suspect many of the good things, like the funny
lines, are the responsibility of the American writers. I
really wish this movie had better credits so I know who they are.
Regardless, I can't give this any more than a 3.
I really hope it gets better as time goes on. Right now I am
not enthusiastic.
Now, Masters of the Universe... THERE is a fun show!
~TheOrange
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