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Transformers: Animated Review
by Doom and the Red Fox
guest starring Starscream
No comment.
With the release of Michael Bay's Transformers, the intelligence level of the franchise has been taken down several pegs. However, that's not to say the franchise earned renown for good writing or interesting conceptualization at any point in time. Beast Wars came the closest, and even then it had to synergize with the toys, leading to a few contrived plot elements. After Beast Machines' failure, the Transformers franchise took an intellectual nosedive into just blatant appeals for money. Hence the recent series of Robots in Disguise, Armada, Energon and Cybertron; all featured Japanese animation, all made little to no sense, all insulted the intelligence of even 5 year olds. Transformers: Animated seeks to preserve the retardation and throw in some vague window-dressing that somewhat orients it with the Michael Bay universe, although still not really. What results is a confusing, stupid mess as hard to watch as it is to look at. Those designs! Yeesh.
That's a ridiculous face.
So, everything starts out fine and dandy, with all of the Autobots working on an asteroid in order to do something for someone eventually leading them to find the All Spark. Amazing, isn't it, considering in many instances the robots never find the All Spark, or if they do they find it very far into the season. But that is beside the point. They find the spark, get attacked by Decepticons and are magically transported to Earth via the All Spark and some sort of giant space tuning fork, with Megatron being the only Decepticon in tow. They crash down on Earth near...DETROIT! OH HELL! Anyway, Megatron is blown up and found as scrap metal while the Autobots go into hibernative naptosis for fifty years. In that time Megatron was melted down for spare parts and the Autobots continued to be incredibly corny, pun-drenched idiots. They fight some sort of giant mutant cockroach and are found out to be living robots after, oh, the first twenty-thirty minutes. They return to their underground base where a football shaped girl finds a magic key made by the All Spark, which can apparently heal any injured robot instantly. All the Autobots are declared heroes in Detroit so Starscream comes down for a little visit, even though it isn't apparent how he got there (he must've spent several decades flying to Earth or something). Fight ensues, he demands the All Spark, hostages are taken, and football girl formulates a plan. Even with the plan of a five year old, the Autobots fail to keep the All Spark, causing Prime and Starscream to fight over it. Prime dies, but key girl brings him back to life at the end (so Prime's death in the 1986 movie could've been averted had the Autobots procured a little Indian girl? FASCINATING!), leaving Starscream to fight another day...or something. Oh, yes, and the reason futuristic Detroit is so futuristic? Father of football girl, aka Indian Robotics Inventor, based all of his inventions off reverse engineering Megatron, whose body has been made into various inventions and his head a monitor. THAT PLAGIARIZING...BASTARD!
"Stand aside, minions. FOR I AM ROBOT HITLER"
Really, what do you say about Transformers: Animated? Well, we could start by discussing Optimus Prime's horrible leadership qualities. The plan to rescue the hostages held by Starscream really had no merit whatsoever when you consider the tactics of the whole matter. When you think about it, the entirety of the Autobots were unable to defeat Starscream in his first attack by on them, so what hope did they think they had by splitting their team in two, trying to protect both the All Spark as well as the hostages. Sure, the Autobots had the overall incompetence of Starscream on their side, but that doesn't make up for their terrible performance last time or the fact that they are one team member down (I guess Bumblebee technically counts as a team member). They relied on the plan of a child and they gained nothing out of it because, after all, Starscream did end up with the All Spark anyway. Couldn't they come up with a slightly better plan? Optimus Prime did go to the Autobot Academy and that little five year old Indian girl didn't look like she had any formal schooling. Not even from Human State OR Human A&M. This all relates to Optimus Prime sucking as a leader, as no real leader would accept a little girl plan. In Animated, Optimus is not a wise battle commander. He's a wet behind the ears rookie in way over his head, and since the rest of his team are likewise total fucking idiots, maybe little football head girl should lead the Autobots. She could most certainly annoy the Decepticons to death.
"I told them I'd use my Men in Black scripts for nefarious ends! Hahahahahahahahahaha!" - Marty Isenberg
Moreover, there seems to be absolutely no point at all behind the Autobots being on Earth. What I mean by that is the fact that they are now out in the open, with all of the humans on the planet knowing there are talking alien machines living in Detroit. That defeats the entire purpose of them having to transform into machines then, since they never have to be in vehicle mode to disguise themselves from the populace. That added some of the importance behind their work in other series, because they had to protect the world and prevent everyone from knowing what they really were in the process...not to mention the fucking "Robots in Disguise" tagline found in almost all of the previous series. This way it seems useless for them to ever even use their vehicle modes since the abilities of a car don't seem to be very important for anything other than comic relief (like cops giving parking tickets to a ROBOT!). You need to give them a reason to be in their non-natural mode (hell, Beast Wars did it by saying they needed to protect themselves from unnatural Energon crystals), but now there isn't any point. Way to go. It takes real skill to take the whole transforming aspect out of Transformers, but this show was able to do it in about thirty minutes.
His alternate mode is an actual mouth.
The apparent premise of Transformed Animated is turning the Autobots into superheroes instead of just robotic heroic types. This premise also allows the Autobots to fight non-Decepticon threats, as promotional material has told me will happen. In addition to the Men in Black monster that popped up in the movie, non-robot villains will, according to Wikipedia, include Nanosec, who "uses inline skates and a whip as weapons"; Meltdown, a scientist who "develops acidic powers after experimenting with some of Bumblebee's hydraulic fluid"; and, my favorite, The Angry Archer, "[a] Robin Hood-styled human villain who uses a bow and arrows to fight against the Autobots". Well...then. See, I don't understand why the writing staff would want to turn the Autobots into a generic superteam fighting generic threats rejected from Ben 10 or even Danny Phantom. Why bother making it Transformers? I don't want to fucking see Bumblebee saving cats from trees and the police setting up an Autobot signal. It's retarded in the same way the rest of this bullshit series is retarded.
And, once again, writers of Transformers fuck up by including human characters who have way too much influence over the adventures. We've seen a shitload of idiotic sidekicks over the years, starting with Spike and devolving into Rad, Carlos, Alexis, Kicker and many other insufferable moppets. And now we reach the zenith of annoying fucking kids with Sari Sumdac, the daughter of brilliant plagiarizer Dr. Isaac Sumdac. Despite having the cartoon skintone of an Indian (brownish red), she is more of a mop with a football on top of it. Her little arms and legs and lack of any skeletal or muscle structure confirm this hypothesis. Already Transformers Animated used up the entire usefulness of the character, which is to play upon the homophone relationship between the name Sari and the word 'sorry', though I do expect it to be used in subsequent episodes to the tune of at least once per show. Some incident involving the All Spark gives her special key (which she wears around her neck) the ability to bring robots back to life or heal them, meaning she is effectively God. Unfortunately, no evidence has shown she can KILL robots, so it appears Bumblebee will be around to stay. Expect her to implausibly get wrapped up in adventures and for the Autobots to put an innocent child in harm's way every week. If she didn't deserve to die, that'd be child endangerment and abuse. Fun fun fun!
On a lighter note, Starscream is here to add his thoughts on the show and his portrayal in particular.
MEGGGGGGGGGGGGGATRON! THIS NEW CARTOOOOON IS EVEN WORSE THAN THAT MOOOOOVIE I SAW A FEW MONTHS AGO! MEGGGGATRON! I, STARSCREAM, DO NOT APPROVE OF Transformers: Animated ONE BIT! WHY? I'LL TELL YOU WHY! I, STARSCREAM, AM INEXPLICABLY NOT THE STARSCREAM I, STARSCREAM, GREW UP WITH! SUDDENLY I AM VOICED BY TOMMMMMMM KENNNNNNNY! SUDDENLY MY MOUTH IS IN THE UPPER RIGHT CORNER OF MY FAAACE! IT IS ALL VERY INSULTING! I EXPECT A LITTLE DIGGGGGGNITY BEING GIIIIIIIVEN TO I, STARSCREAM, FOR ALL MY LOYAL YEARS AS MEGGGGGATRON'S SECOND IN COMMAND! ALSO, WHY IS A LITTLE GIRL FRIEND TO THE AUTOBOTS AND CAPABLE OF RESURRECTING THE DEAD OR INJURED? THIS MAKES NO SENSE, MEGGGGGGGATRON! END COMMUNICATION!
Thank you, Mr. Scream. May you continue to delight us with your 80s numbskullery, even though the man who did your voice are long dead. Since Starscream brought up the animation, let us take the time to discuss the issue of the designs. You've seen them in the screenshots! They're an awful, woeful blend of shitty Japanese zaniness and the American propensity for out of proportion Liefeldery. While the art does not contain any direct links to The Fallen One, the bizarre, nonsensical designs say to me the designers hold some reverential feelings towards the Image boys. Either way, the Autobots look severely disturbing, the little girl resembles no little girl ever in existence, not even Linda Blair, and Megatron is a diaper headed freak with stereos for arms. Come on! Look at them! It's like they slapped them together without any thought, using only a pencil, while blindfolded in a dark room! If that doesn't quality as 'shit art', I'm not sure what does. I can't even properly make fun of the designs, cause they pretty much make fun of themselves by sheer existence! I would, however, like to pick up upon one element particular to nearly all of them - the big chin. Almost everyone has a ridiculous chin, from Optimus to Starscream to Scary Ninja Prowl. The chin debacle brings to mind The Batman, which similarly gave its protagonist an impossibly large one. I don't get it, man. Perhaps they are to animation what feet were to 90s comic books.
What
In addition to the failing animation, the voices really need some work. If given the list of names without their corresponding characters, the cast looks somewhat impressive. David Kaye. Tom Kenny. Tara Strong. Corey Burton. Lance Henriksen (FRANK BLACK!!!!). But none of them are fit for the roles given. David Kaye, famous (among nerds) for playing Megatron to relative success in the last 4-5 series, now voices Optimus Prime, the Optimus Prime in name only who's not a confident leader and shows no leadership skills whatsoever. He is the The Batman of Animated; a clueless buffoon who's only in charge thanks to everyone being even more clueless and buffoon-like. Tom Kenny's Starscream sounds like a variation of every other voice he's ever done; thus, the Penguin with a little bit of manipulation in order to sound 'robotic'. Tara Strong plays Sari...enough fucking said, I think. Bumblebee's voice? Token black kid, aka Bumper Robinson, who turns Bumblebee into...token black kid. Then what the hell will Jazz's role be when HE shows up (Phil LaMarr, the only other black male voiceover artist in America, lends his 'only other black male voiceover artist'-ness to Jazz)? Overall, Animated's voices are certainly a far cry from Beast Wars or even Armada, which at least had Gary Chalk.
But the crux of the show's suckitude lies in the writing. Marty Isenberg, nee Beast Machines, oversees the writing of the production. Now, if you had that as the entirety of his resume, one might expect a flawed effort that nonetheless offered glimpses of missed potential. No such thing with Animated. There's, there's...no potential. None. By design, Isenberg made it into a show for retarded 5 year olds written by men who write like retarded 5 year olds. At least 80% of the writing process must go towards thinking of robot equivalents to human things. Like "what would the Autobot version of the brain be...CPU? But what about the hard drive? FUCK!!!!". The rest the 'writers' use on thinking up inane plots and...that's about it. No characterization really existed in the 3 episode compendium, unless you count giving each character one characteristic 'characterization'. In that case, we should really start considering Jeph "Teen Wolf 87" Loeb a writer.
You know who else used people as furniture? ED GEIN.
The pilot movie for Transformers: Animated lacks merit and sets up an insanely shitty status quo, if one based the entire status quo on what is seen in said pilot movie. The Decepticons, except for Starscream, don't figure into the plot at all, and the only 'enemies' are monsters recycled from Men in Black: The Animated Series. Megatron's a head and various computer parts in Isaac Sumdac's room of secret shame (I don't like the trend in Transformers canon to have Megatron as so incompetent he routinely crash lands on Earth and is responsible for 50-100 years of human ingenuity). I suspect Decepticons and other foes will be introduced slowly so as to give kids more time to whine for toys to their parents. No interest here. But who wanted our interest anyway? We're sardonic, caustic 20-somethings whose ties to the franchise got cut off sometime in the early teen years. It seems, from the Internet reaction I've seen on message boards, Animated successfully captured the attention of stupid children and stupid mentally-stunted men, both of whom have lots of money to waste. Animated touches those nostalgia buttons - most of the characters derive from G1, they make the classic transforming sound, and the opening clip shows flashback videos of G1 footage, giving a foothold for morons who spend 22 hours a day sorting out Transformers continuity. There's a connection to inflate! See, the show has something for everyone, if you don't include 'intelligent human beings' in 'everyone'.
I've lost even more faith in humanity.