Transformers War for Cybertron Trilogy : Earthrise is getting ready to hit Netflix in just a couple days, officially dropping on December 30th worldwide. The show continues on from the first chapter – SIEGE. The final days of the War for Cybertron were shown last time, and now we follow the Autobots, Decepticons and others they meet along the way as they travel through the galaxy, all looking for something to finish the battle once and for all. It’s a direct continuation and the middle chapter on our way to KINGDOM next year.
TFW2005 was able to check out the entire series a bit early thanks to the Netflix and Hasbro PR teams. Read on to check out our thoughts, there may be some minor spoilers but we will keep all the major stuff out so you can enjoy the series yourselves!
Transformers War for Cybertron Trilgoy: Earthrise Overall Thoughts
OK, Round 2 go! I enjoyed Siege, it was the first animated series I’ve dug in a long time. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than the Prime Wars Trilogy eps. I said it before, the still frames are fantastic. Overarching story is great. Only dips are in execution. Movement is clunky. Speech is SLOW. Battles are a little less refined. That is most likely due to budget and timing. But the key elements are there for this series. I am going along for the ride knowing all this, and just trying to enjoy the throwbacks and remixing of the lore.
All in all, if you watched Siege, you know what you are getting into. Same core characters. Same animation styles, same visuals, sounds. This story is what John Warden mentioned at Toy Fair while explaining Earthrise as a toy line – it’s the journey to Earth. Earthrise and them being on Earth, getting Earth modes, are the end of the journey. Things like the Galactic Odyssey Collection at Amazon and some of the character choices like Quintessons show this is not G1 Ep 1, waking up in 1984. New journey here. I won’t spoil the series by saying exactly where or when things happen, but the trailer does a pretty good job at showing what we are going to get.
I won’t get too much into Voice Acting like I did last time, it’s the same crew and being executed in the same way. I think it’s more about the execution rather than the talent. Slowness, long pauses. It’s the tv show equivalent of using 22 point font and double spacing your homework. On my second pass, I watched it on 1.5x speed and it was closer to normal that way. I’m not sure there is any point in changing this style for Chapter 3 now, but going forward beyond WFC this should be addressed.
As for the whole season in general, I dug it, but I’m leaning more towards Siege right now. There was some cool stuff, and LOTS of throwbacks, Easter eggs and one liners that perk you up. With Siege we were introduced to a new world with new rules, remixes of our characters’ backstory, which was exciting. This continues that, bridging us to the third chapter which I believe has a lot more potential. That being said, the last two eps are really good and pack a lot in. And the very end of the last ep, pure win. So strap in.
Bottom line, good stuff, fun ride, and I am looking forward to Chapter 3’s Kingdom. Get your Netflix account in order and prepare for the drop on December 30th!
I’ve included my running notes for each episode below. These are just things that popped out to me as I watched it the second time around. I’ve deleted a lot, and made other things vague on purpose.
There are still some spoilery things below so if you don’t want to go there, STOP NOW!
EPISODE 1
10 seconds in, lots more repaints for down the road 🙂
Cybertron looks like toast, Autobot crew is active (Elita, Jetfire, Red Alert, Chromia)
Slow talking Megs is talking slow again
Some savageness going on with Megs, he’s losing it.
Project Nemesis – Shockwave in charge of it, evil scientist style
Elita is running the Autobot show
Watching this on 1.5x speed is way better. So weird.
Autobot Tapes! Wait a minute…
Chromia has grown on me, bad ass.
Like the way they are making Megs a bit more complex, not just automatically purely evil. Growing into it lol.
Todaro as Starscream still boss.
Damn, Shockwave is an evil mofo.
Ark time…
EPISODE 2
Coneheads on Tetrajet bodies, now I need those too.
Doubledealer, head of crew with Bugbite and Exhaust, Coneheads – All mercenary crew.
Name drop on that planet, nice.
Quintesson well done.
New back story, remix of G1 toon lore.
Multiple personality angle also well done.
Consensus…
Autobots caught, going down, wait no, that was quick, what now?
Hello Mr. Duocon.
The ugly one, hehe.
Digging that Quint building/ship design, nice call back.
The NEMESIS.
Dig the new backstory for it, adds another level of evil to the Decepticons
EPISODE 3
Yeah Beezy!
A mug at …, hehe
Nebulon station, nice nice. Lotsa lore drops here. I wonder who could be waiting there…
Scorponok! Not classic toon size…
Oh Mirage, you tricky….
EPISODE 4
Scorpy is angry, got a simple Grimlock style speech pattern.
There’s some new Scorponok backstory getting dropped here, listen to his rants.
Good to see Ravage getting some play.
Starscream being schemey as usual.
Good little back and forth with Prime and Megs. Some nice nuggets there.
“Too old, can’t translate it!!” Soundwave: Hold my beer.
All in all good battle action, and lots of nostalgia throw backs in this ep. Some a little forced.
EPISODE 5
Alpha Trion! Sky Lynx!
Ok, this is different.
I am down with this Megs Galvatron angle. Well done. As a cartoon first guy.
Basically lots of great stuff in this ep, don’t want to spoil, so watch every second!
EPISODE 6
Can’t really speak on almost anything from this ep without spoilers.
I dug it. it’s a modern remix of existing lore.
The last 10 seconds nailed it. Best thing of the trilogy yet. I did not know I wanted that until I saw it, and now I can’t wait for what’s next. Bring it!
Atomsk
Lol wut, are we watching different shows? Elita-1 was straight up badass in Earthrise, she literally showed more leadership and made harder decisions than Optimus.
volatus
[X] Told
You enjoyed Emotional Rollercoaster Robot Becky?! Alright, I guess if she was doing that on purpose, then it's fun and we can always fall back on "that's how she was programmed."
I really have to wonder about the original, Quintesson-designated purpose of many of WfC's Transformer molds.
In the WfC continuity, what are the rules for changing your alt mode? The Bay movies made it into a process that, while very cool, seemed a little bit too easy. If nothing else, it should cost a lot of energon. But requiring Optimus Prime's trailer or the systems aboard the Ark seems perhaps a bit too specific.
Atomsk
Lol why are you guys all complaining about the voice acting? The voice acting was probably one of the best qualities of Siege and Earthrise – really enjoyed Wheeljack, Elita-1, and the Quintesson in particular.
The lack of character development, basic fight choreography, and only 6 episodes per season was my biggest issues.
BB Shockwave
Maybe Primal and Megatron too… who knows. They did use 4 Earthrise characters for this show (Sky Lynx, Scorponok, Quintesson Judge, Doubledealer).
Not really… Brunt? Allicons? Trailbreaker, Hoist, Sunstreaker, Snapdragon, Apeface… the list is long. EDIT: ah you are talking about the Netflix toys? Well, half of those did not show up either or not in those bodies. No transforming Bee or Elita, no Earth Mode Soundwave. Nemesis Prime only showed up for a second. None of the Battlemasters.
I am not gonna be surprised if all the Beast Wars characters used non-toy models and they never transformed (except Dinobot). Of the new models they used in Earthrise, only Scorponok transformed.
The Ark is the next Titan class toy for WFC Kingdom. And for afterwards? Who knows whatever toyline happens next.
Oooh, thanks, there is something to listen to while playing games tonight!
I don't think Hasbro gave a shit about quality… they just cared about who can do these glorified "movies" split into episode for the least amount of money. Last time they selected Machinima, now Rooster Teeth… That's basically the bottom of the barrel for animation. They could have went to WB,CN, even Disney… but nope. They went for the cheapest. And unlike Prime Wars, now they did not even give them a budget for well known/expensive voice actors. Also, they likely saved on the budget by giving them the CAD models for the toys as well…
These are really just things Hasbro does to keep the older fans content and to do a sort of half-arsed advertising for the toys.. I say half-arsed because barely any of the toys are in the show in Earthrise, and most of them never transform.
It's like Rooster Teeth forgot they had his CAD model and were like "dammit, we could have used him instead of Reflector #5652. Guess we can still put him in as a cameo?
They are confusing Prime and Batman. Prime is a soldier, he kills when he has to, in order to save others. Clearly Megatron will just cause more death and destruction, he should be if not killed, at least locked up.
Wackimus Prime
"YEEEESSSSSS"
Rojixus
They are going to ruin it, you need to come to terms with that.
rikaldomario
Regarding Jetfire:
"I know Decepticons are backstabbers because I, myself am one."
Regarding Scorponok:
I mostly agree that they should have said "the last (insert stablished faction here)", but didn't really bother me that much that Scorponok is a species/subgroup.
Also, if I'm not mistaken I seem to recall that he indeed had a modified Decepticon symbol that look more scorpion like.
Tfcollector97
As for kingdom they can ruin every characters voice but they will cross a line if they ruin Megatron’s voice i only want to hear David Kaye’s voice out of Megatron.
optimalsupreme
Finally watched it and I thought it was alright.
Yes there were too many unnecessary plotlines, too many cameos ,the voice acting is still sub par and the dialogue isn't great.
But I think the character models look good, frame rate is stable and at least they had more interesting locales this time.
It was more interesting from Siege for sure and there were lots of nods to pas shows i.e. the bombs the autobots use look like the same ones out of TF Prime.
Bring on Kingdom I say.
T-Hybrid
I was talking about the Netflix line, but go off.
Rojixus
Springer, Apeface, Snapdragon, Brunt, Fasttrack, Hoist, Grapple, Trailbreaker, Sunstreaker, Smokescreen, Bluestreak, Runabout, Runamuck, and the Allicons sure as fuck didn't show up.
T-Hybrid
I mean, besides Primal and Cheetor who're confirmed to get toys.
And everybody who's gotten a toy has shown up.
Meh. Won't matter because I have the original on DVD and nothing they do will change those or the toys.
Will be interesting to see how they change up things given the Beasts are already there this time. And I wonder how they'll handle the scaling issues. Will they be giant animals? Because we've already seen them play with scale regarding Lynx/Skorpy.
I wonder if part if the change will be a few G1 dudes getting beast modes. Especially Megaton. I really want him to become a trex.
Fc203
I wouldnt be surprised if dinobot is the only bw character that shows up in kingdom
Dinotrap
I’m genuinely scared as to what they have planned for the beast wars characters in kingdom as this show has left me feeling the same way siege did. All the bad voice acting, Boring episodes, lack of anything interesting and it’s just a big meh from me. Primus help my favourite characters from hasbros ridiculous plans
octobotimus
I finally watched Earth rise….. I regret watching the skylynx episode. 20 minutes of exposition and wasted time that amounts to nothing.
As usual, everyone talks slowly, but that wasn’t my main issue. Just the abundance of throwing shit at the wall. They just throw things at you then get rid of them almost immediately. The show feels both agonizingly slow, but yet extremely rushed. There’s cool ideas in there, but the writers clearly won’t commit to any of them. Optimus somehow ends up being among my least favorite things in this show, which is depressing. I hate the fact that it’s tied to the toy lines. Just make a show that has free reign and an actual budget. Let them do stuff without hamfisting everything together and rushing in to the next line…
I legitimately do not want to watch the next “season”. I have no attachment to beast wars outside of liking the designs and watching clips as a kid, but I don’t want to even see what sort of characters those end up being. I just want this show to end.
Fafnir72
Agreed!
Maybe should have called this Siege Season 2
I previously mentioned this, if it was meant to sell "products" i.e. toys, it fails miserable 'cause they "recycled" a lot of Siege models when it should now be ER.
Iirc, Furman did this in his original Marvel run. Talk about unorigi….homages
x infinity!
WinstoBot
Watched it last night. That was some weak ass writing. Spoiler: stop if you don’t want to know more.
They wrote Prime as an ineffectual leader drowning in his regret and completely locked in a juvenile understanding of right and wrong. Seriously!!!??? Prime was begging Megatron for forgiveness so he can kill him??? Total crap. I’ve read and have seen a lot of Transformers stories since ‘84 , so I feel I having an understanding of the Optimus Prime character. This story just sucked.
kwanzaabot
I had the same problems with this miniseries as I had with the Siege one: Rooster Teeth are not good writers. It's too bad that Hbomberguy's "RWBY is Garbage, and Here's Why" video came out right before the Siege cartoon, because I've gone into this series with his criticisms fresh in my mind from day one, and I think the writing quality in War for Cybertron shares a lot of the same problems RWBY has. They're good at flashy fight scenes, but some of their writing choices are just………. weird, man.
* Jetfire, completely and utterly unironically, says the Decepticons could turn against them and should be killed, while Red Alert, a character who in other media (ie IDW) has been depicted as paranoid, says nothing. What on Earth compelled them to give that line to Jetfire? It doesn't work.
* Deseeus is an interesting concept for a character, but prior to his Face of Wrath taking control, he was just one big infodump. Did we need to know he freed the Transformers from Quintesson ownership? What does it add to the story, exactly? And if he managed to reach consensus to do that, why oh why did Wrath go all axe-crazy? Surely Wrath was pro-Transformer-freedom too! And he had Transformers under his command, so the interpretation that they went mad from isolation/abandonment feels hollow to me. Why hasn't he killed his Ironhide repaints? Either have him be totally alone, and establish that he resents being alone, or just make him a typical Quintesson and have him turn on the Autobots from the get-go. His character motivations were waaaaaay too muddy.
* Scorponok. Why is he the "Last Scorponok"? That's dumb. He's a member of so many different species and factions, was it really necessary to make up a new one? Make him the last Nebulan, the last Headmaster, the last Titan Master, or hell, use some of the Japanese terminology and make him the last Cyberdroid. There's so many names they could've gone with without making him a Scorponok.
* My theory as to why is maybe Scorponok from the Kingdom toyline will be revealed as another Scorponok who survived on what I can only guess was "New Nebulos".
* But if you're gonna present him as a new species who's never interacted with Cybertronians before… WHY DOES HE HAVE A DECEPTICON BADGE?
* God, I hate the voice acting. Starscream is excellent, but the rest sound… wrong, somehow. Ironhide is too young, I can barely understand Soundwave without subtitles, and Shockwave doesn't have any of the pomp and grandeur of the original.
* I did like that Galvatron at least attempted to sound like Leonard Nimoy, and I give him props for that, but oh MAN, Optimus Prime needs a throat lozenge.
* I'm not one of those guys who thinks every Optimus needs to be voiced by Peter Cullen or anything, but that gravelly Batman voice does not suit Optimus Prime at all.
* Yet another Spoiler toy that isn't a spoiler. Nemesis Prime appears for a grand total of half a second.
OriginalFire
This was an okay season. Siege was better, the backgrounds were way way better this time aroud. They added life to the show.