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!
Awesomeness10
I think the worst part of that is if you took out those bits of Elitas team in Earthrise it wouldn’t change anything in Kingdom since you could just chalk it up to her and everyone else losing Energon.
Dexatronic
Oof yeah I forgot about that haha
Beemer
I'm actually finding a lot to like in the characterizations and moral grayness. Megatron is a complex being. There was a thread recently about this and it seemed most respondents wanted their TF's to be more black-and-white, but this appeals to me.
Soundlips
They completely lost me when they killed off Elita and her crew off screen when they were like the best thing from the series.
Dexatronic
I'd have to agree. The fact they killed off skywarp with a shot to the shoulder alone ruined it for me lol
Soundlips
I wouldn't, as it would ruin quite a bit of characters if you do so. I would stick to other places personally. I still think the War For Cybertron games do a much better job setting up G1 than this series because like many other series, was never intended to be an aligned continuity, so it doesn't really stack up to G1. Not to mention this is one of the worse TF series as it butchers so many characters.
Soundlips
Jesus, I forgot that this was even a thing again till it randomly popped back up. I am struggling to remember just about anything from this series. I don't think any show has been more forgettable than this one.
Beemer
I started re-watching Siege because I remembered it overlapping with the G1 cartoon, sorta. 1.25 speed works so much better, I actually think that may have been the INTENDED speed, and all the episodes ended up being too short so they had to slow it down from the recorded speed to take up longer ad-free Netflix slots! There's only a couple spots where it seems kinda jumpy, but for the most part I imagine 1.25 is the pace the actors were speaking.
…but yeah, the character voices are pretty bland. Looking at the IMDB page, I think they hired Instagram influencers instead of established talents!
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.