Entertainment Weekly has just brought us our first photos from the upcoming Machinima Combiner Wars cartoon, featuring looks at characters including Windblade, Starscream, Menasor, and more! Plus, they’ve also provided some new details, including the debut date and the announcement of a prelude series:
“Transformers fans will have to wait until June 23, 2017, to catch the next installment in Michael Bay’s live-action film series, but Hasbro Studios and programming service Machinima are gearing up for the release of their action-packed animated adventure Transformers: Combiner Wars in the interim, and EW has an exclusive first look at the new series.
Hasbro’s Chief Content Officer, Stephen Davis, and Chad Gutstein, Chief Executive Officer for Machinima, previewed the joint project during a Cannes Lions Festival presentation on Thursday, showing off several never-before-seen images and revealing plot details from the upcoming series.
The animated project is a monumental one for Transformers, as the franchise has yet to launch a digital-first program like Combiner Wars throughout its 32-year history. In partnering with Machinima, Hasbro Studios joined forces with a multi-platform video curator showcasing fandom-focused, gamer-related content to more than 170 million worldwide viewers each month.
Aiming to better acquaint fans with the Combiner Wars universe, Davis and Gutstein additionally announced that a prelude series will launch on June 28 via YouTube, Facebook, and the social entertainment platform go90. Heading into the series premiere, the four-episode preview will offer insight into the current state of Cybertron as it exists in the realm of Combiner Wars.
“Machinima is known as a leader of the digital content space and has tremendous creative talent within their network. We are excited to partner with them to tell a new kind of Transformers story for the digital generation,” Davis said in a statement. “The writers, artists, and voice actors working on this series are all true fans of the franchise, and their love for these characters really shines through in Combiner Wars.”
Combiner Wars is set to debut Aug. 2 on go90.”
We’ve attached the stills to this post for your viewing pleasure – check them all out after the break!
Update: You may have noticed a new character in these photos who appears to be a reuse of the Windblade model. The image info describes her as being an original character named Maxima.
jamarmiller
is there anyway to download private facebook videos ? If so I do not know it .
primalxconvoy
Could someone pop this on YouTube please? YouTube isn't exactly the best platform for sharing video. I'm in Japan and can't watch it anyway and hate YouTube, too.
Cheers.
G1Prowl
Agree that it's a good indicator of case assortment argument, but the fact that they were sitting on the shelf/peg for a year and a half dictates that they didn't sell, though. Remember Cheetor and Dinobot? Pegwarmers. Armada Hot Shot didn't, but he was also an end of the liner. I'm a firm believer that if case distribution not been incredishitty, the pegs would have been full of Waspinators and I never would have gotten Crosscut and the like
GR1ML0CK
Soon now. I have high hopes for the theme of this series. Very serious tone
SouthtownKid
Even that is not true.
I've seen plenty of Beast Wars fans hate on G1, as if Beast Wars ever would have existed without it.
Jalaguy
Where did I say everyone who grew up on G1 complains about things being different? Obviously, yes, that would be a ridiculous thing to imply. I have no desire to tar everybody with the same brush.
All "not G1 enough" moaners are children of the '80s but not all children of the '80s are "not G1 enough" moaners.
Smokescreen38
Let me tell you about the Beast Wars.
Ok…whining on a forum about toys is a really worthwhile use of our time. We all get that. Grouping people by their age and assuming that they all think in the same (supposedly wrong) way about something you care about, makes you look like a moron in my book.
As an old geezer of a fan (I'm 38) all I want is that Has/Tak are consistent in honoring what came before and continue to offer products that strike the same note of sophisticated, beautiful, well engineered transforming robot toys.
Personally, I want a mix of new and old.
Windsweeper II
As you say though; they are largely where the money is and i do understand that.
I also care more by and large for the post 86 characters, but i do appreciate the earlier cast and some of them: Shockwave for example are among my favorites too.
I may come of somewhat strong on this subject sometimes but I don't hate the 84-85 cast. I just hate their sometimes tyranical dominance.
That doesn't mean they didnt sell though. They just have to make better assesements about howemany units to produce of certain characters. And that works both ways: they could have made much more money of the Sky Lynx mold because there are still people looking for him left and right.
Lord Dcast
Hm…seems a bit different over here. Optimus and Bumblebee are usually the shelfwarmers as fans and kids already have them, whereas I've never seen a Sky Lynx or Motormaster past day one anywhere besides Myers, where they're usually overpriced.
G1Prowl
Fun fact, despite a couple of severely obscure G1 characters like Roadbuster, which toys were the hardest to clear out of retailers and sat collecting dust for damn near half of Combiner Wars, if not more? Rattrap, Rhinox, Skybite. Hell, the Walmart at Crawfordsville, IN had 5 Tankors and 5 Skybites on the pegs THIS YEAR. I personally dread anybody at Hasbro who entertains the idea of making the entire Generations line dedicated to one of those shows.
Lord Dcast
Fair point about the original trilogy, however I'm fine with stories taking place within the same universe, but using new characters. However, I was referring to things in general. Not sure what's going on over there but characters like Han, Leia and Chewie are shelfwarming over here while the new characters are being bought up by new fans all over the place.
And that's what Transformers needs; new fans. As much as I hate to say it, the fandom's been getting smaller and smaller every few or so years. We need more fans, otherwise we're on a decade-long trip to cancellation.
Sadly, Hasbro is trying to get money out of the existing fans without thinking ahead, and a balance must be achieved between the fanbase and the general public if we are to continue this franchise.
jamarmiller
i actually welcome Rook and Alpha Brave and the other stunticon guy to appear in the show………..just as long as they die in time for us to get slingshot, groove, and the other stunticon guy by the end as replacements LOL
jamarmiller
suppose to be today and one a week for a month
in about 5 weeks time the regular series is suppose to start
however I am worried that these prequel eps will be ,,,,,,,,,,,not exactly what we are hoping or expecting, I am worried its just going to be something like still pictures or something and not actual animation.
soundwaverulls
I feel very much the same. I actually like G1, but when I see people complaining about Hasbro trying do something different, and getting entitled, I start feeling resentment to that part of the franchise. I know not every G1 fan is like that, but there are far too many of them.
Although, all the arguing in this thread spawned from Alpha Bravo, who I personally don't care for. He was completely out of place in the Aerialbots, and made Quick-Slinger hard to obtain for some.
G1Dan
Is there a preview for this soon? Sure I read something about that somewhere
SouthtownKid
Yeah, that's fine. But aside from what you or I want, I can see why they do it. Because obviously, that is where their money is coming from. Money is why they do anything, so if they do that, money is the reason. Not because anyone here has any pull with them.
If there was as large a market for that as you wish there was, they'd already be doing it.
I don't know how you think Star Wars proves that. When they came out with the Black line, was it a bunch of new characters? No. It was Luke and Leia and Han and Chewie and Vader and Greedo and R2-D2 with newer characters sprinkled in. And thanks to the way that story is set up, most of the newer characters have some relation to the older characters anyway. And none of them are from a separate continuity, the way TF is set up. Pretty much everything they do now has some tie to the original trilogy.
Lord Dcast
See my previous comment. We've got too many 84/85 characters being updated again and again.
If you're going to make toys, maybe make new characters or go with obscure ones. Titans Return is a good start, getting away from the typical cast, but we need to go further. Perhaps they could show Beast Wars some more love aside from the MPs and reissues.
Or why not just make new characters entirely? Star Wars has proven that kids want to buy the newer guys more than the old ones. Maybe its time for some new stories to be told.
Still, on this topic, I'm looking forward to this specifically BECAUSE it has a new character. I understand Windblade's not perfect, but at least she isn't Optimus or Bumblebee for the umpteenth time.
SouthtownKid
Yeah, I'm with you there. I have little to no interest in the '84 (and '85) characters, outside of a couple.
Lord Dcast
While updates of G1 are fine, I'm just saying that I'm also fine with new characters. And yes, a line without G1 characters would actually be quite good.