After watching a sneak peak of this new series, I thought it would be promising to the source material of the Aligned continuity family despite the CG animation downgrade. However, when I first saw the first episode of the series, I was more than shocked. I was extremely disappointed.
The storytelling for the first episode (ironically known as Pilot, Pt. 1) was rushed and lacking the creative spark which made previous Transformers TV series such as the Beast Era series, Prime and best of all, Animated, so successful. Storytelling became more and more disappointing with each subsequent episode.
The characters are underdeveloped and generic, it's hard to feel they are believable. The writers were being selfish by disregarding other Aligned fiction besides Prime and (sadly) Rescue Bots, but it feels so wrong with these different characterizations of certain characters who appeared in other Aligned fiction but are entirely different and sh*t in this series. Grimlock, for example, is entirely different in comparison to his WFC/FOC counterpart by starting off as Decepticon, nor is he in control of a team of Dinobots either, which also disappoints longtime fans (including me). Oh, and he is green. There is also an Autobot samurai known as Drift who is a racial stereotype, much like his AOE counterpart.
Most Decepticons resemble somewhat of animals and/or monsters whenever they would transform out of their alternate modes, which remains confusing as to how these Decepticons resemble said creatures in their robot modes. I suspect the Decepticon scientist Shockwave hadn't anything to do with this as he was busy with "Project Predacon" during Prime. Also, there's a Decepticon other than Grimlock who is a Dinobot (daf*q).
Character design is just plain hideous and intolerable. Previous Transformers TV series such as Beast Machines, Animated and Prime were more distinctive with their artistic styles in comparison to this rubbish and that's saying something. Season 2 also sees Polygon recycling many Decepticon character models from Season 1 so as to distance each of these "new" Decepticons from their Season 1 counterparts. Just sad, even for me.
The voice acting is dull, lifeless and painful, it feels as if you wouldn't want to take voice acting as a career anymore. Peter Cullen, (the voice of Optimus Prime) also, doesn't bring the same depth of acting as he did in Prime.
I'm fine with African-American voice actor Khary Payton as the voice of Grimlock (I respect that), but the direction for the character that he has to take is annoying but only because it's the voice director's fault (ironically the same voice director for Prime since Season 1, Episode 12).
Too much Dubstep and campy music scores from score composers Kevin Manthei and Kevin Kiner.
CG animation is a downgrade in comparison to Prime, even by the same animation studio. The character animations feel stiff and lifeless in this series.
As this is (or was) meant to be a sequel series to Prime, this shouldn't feel as if is set within the same timeline as its predecessor. As it's also meant to be set within the Aligned continuity family (Prime/WFC/FOC/Rage of the Dinobots), it feels more non-canonical than it (sadly) is. There's a lot of major continuity errors, many of which offend the continuity timeline. Despite Ratchet, Soundwave and Starscream's reappearance for Season 2, it feels like a complete waste of time adding them to the mess.
To conclude my review of this "sequel", I believe this should be set within a separate continuity family away from the Aligned continuity family and timeline, along with the dreaded Rescue Bots series. I suggest you cease watching this non-canonical crap right now and save yourself some grief. Perhaps the lesson is that not everything new is always better than its predecessor. You should really take this to heart, as the fifth live-action Transformers film is coming out this year.
The storytelling for the first episode (ironically known as Pilot, Pt. 1) was rushed and lacking the creative spark which made previous Transformers TV series such as the Beast Era series, Prime and best of all, Animated, so successful. Storytelling became more and more disappointing with each subsequent episode.
The characters are underdeveloped and generic, it's hard to feel they are believable. The writers were being selfish by disregarding other Aligned fiction besides Prime and (sadly) Rescue Bots, but it feels so wrong with these different characterizations of certain characters who appeared in other Aligned fiction but are entirely different and sh*t in this series. Grimlock, for example, is entirely different in comparison to his WFC/FOC counterpart by starting off as Decepticon, nor is he in control of a team of Dinobots either, which also disappoints longtime fans (including me). Oh, and he is green. There is also an Autobot samurai known as Drift who is a racial stereotype, much like his AOE counterpart.
Most Decepticons resemble somewhat of animals and/or monsters whenever they would transform out of their alternate modes, which remains confusing as to how these Decepticons resemble said creatures in their robot modes. I suspect the Decepticon scientist Shockwave hadn't anything to do with this as he was busy with "Project Predacon" during Prime. Also, there's a Decepticon other than Grimlock who is a Dinobot (daf*q).
Character design is just plain hideous and intolerable. Previous Transformers TV series such as Beast Machines, Animated and Prime were more distinctive with their artistic styles in comparison to this rubbish and that's saying something. Season 2 also sees Polygon recycling many Decepticon character models from Season 1 so as to distance each of these "new" Decepticons from their Season 1 counterparts. Just sad, even for me.
The voice acting is dull, lifeless and painful, it feels as if you wouldn't want to take voice acting as a career anymore. Peter Cullen, (the voice of Optimus Prime) also, doesn't bring the same depth of acting as he did in Prime.
I'm fine with African-American voice actor Khary Payton as the voice of Grimlock (I respect that), but the direction for the character that he has to take is annoying but only because it's the voice director's fault (ironically the same voice director for Prime since Season 1, Episode 12).
Too much Dubstep and campy music scores from score composers Kevin Manthei and Kevin Kiner.
CG animation is a downgrade in comparison to Prime, even by the same animation studio. The character animations feel stiff and lifeless in this series.
As this is (or was) meant to be a sequel series to Prime, this shouldn't feel as if is set within the same timeline as its predecessor. As it's also meant to be set within the Aligned continuity family (Prime/WFC/FOC/Rage of the Dinobots), it feels more non-canonical than it (sadly) is. There's a lot of major continuity errors, many of which offend the continuity timeline. Despite Ratchet, Soundwave and Starscream's reappearance for Season 2, it feels like a complete waste of time adding them to the mess.
To conclude my review of this "sequel", I believe this should be set within a separate continuity family away from the Aligned continuity family and timeline, along with the dreaded Rescue Bots series. I suggest you cease watching this non-canonical crap right now and save yourself some grief. Perhaps the lesson is that not everything new is always better than its predecessor. You should really take this to heart, as the fifth live-action Transformers film is coming out this year.