The continuation of TFP...

ontopic123

SPOILERS FOR TRANSFORMERS PRIME, BEAST HUNTER COMICS, AND ROBOTS IN DISGUISE ALSO Transformers Prime kicked off the aligned continuity, and it was a great show. Although Predacons rising was a little bit of a lackluster, I had hope that the next show will be as good as TFP. Robots in Disguise is THE official sequel, and it takes place years about Predacons rising. Cybertron is a thriving planet, and all is well. I was disappointed that Bumblebee is the lead character in this show because he hasn't really done anything in Transformers Prime but make clicking noises,and had billions of toys on the shelves. He's particularly a very bland robot that is adored by kids. It would've made more sense if Smokecreen had the lead role, because in Transformers Prime, HE was eligible for carrying the Matrix of Leadership. But that plot was suddenly dropped, and now he's nowhere to be seen. The plot of this show is that Bumblebee and a rag-tag group of Autobots return to Earth to round up Decepticons that have escaped a prison ship that also crashed on Earth.

The animation style is nice, but is a downgrade from TFP. The action scenes suffer due to the slow frame rate, and makes use of those transformation stock footages that we've seen in Transformers Armada and such. The character designs are also unique (especially the Decepticons). The main cast features Bumblebee, a young cadet named Strongarm, a punk named Sideswipe, a minicon named Fixit, and Grimlock- strangely a Decepticon seemingly ignoring the previously established back story for him as a tough, and brutal war general in the Fall of Cybertron game, and the two Transformers Prime comic series that connect significantly to the show, especially the Beast Hunter comics due to the Dinobots teaming up with Team Prime after the events of Predacons rising.

The voice acting is also pretty good, and the show is still fun to watch. My main gripes is that the tone of the show is lighter, so that also has an effect on the action scenes. (Hammerstrike literally gets pushed inside a barrel by Bee in episode 3! While Steeljaw is only kicked once and was defeated in the same episode.)Another problem is that it takes place on earth. The first episode heavily featured Cybertron for the first half of it, and had a pretty awesome environment. Wasted potential. The show also has running gags that get stale, and annoying at times such as Fixit's stuttering problem, which I had chuckled at it a few times. Strongarm's gag is reading rules and protocols from her rulebook gets annoying fast. I still like these characters despite this issue. The Decepticons in this show are amazing, funny and interesting. However, some of them are a bit toned down and barely have any screen time. (Even though he wasn't captured, Thunderhoof didn't appeared in his debut episode until the last 6 minutes or so?) And also,the human characters are tolerable. Denny's cheerful and positive attitude makes him alright, while Russel, Denny's son, can get annoying with his angst and almost sudden change of personality every episode. Jazz and Drift makes appearances, and they're fun characters. (Except Drift, who is heavily based off his AOE incarnation. That is terrible and Drift is a jerk and samurai stereotype.)

This show is still fun to watch, and it's still early on. Hopefully Cartoon Network won't cancel this show in under a year. Robots in Disguise has a lot of potential, and many plot holes left open from Transformers Prime for this show to give closure. Give it a watch.

score 8/10

ontopic123 18 March 2015

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3204424/