Well That's Just Prime: Part II
Well, now I’ve watched the first two episodes of Prime. More episodes will come later in the week, but what do I think of the first two?
Eeeeh.
I’m finding it somewhat, erm, mediocre at the moment. I suppose Animated was a hard act to follow, but I’m not entirely into Prime.
What I think the main reason for that is that the characters were really not very well established. Animated had two scenes showing us the main Autobots and Decepticons, their names, and some of their personalities, like Bumblebee’s thing for speed and Blitzwing’s multiple personalities. Prime gives us a ‘cold open’ of sorts, with Cliffjumper and Arcee out on patrol and coming across a bunch of Decepticon drones. While we learn about the other Autobots and Decepticons later, it’s not really in a way that shows us their personalities. In any case, none of them are particularly special. Prime is, well, like most other Primes, Bumblebee is the mute that the movies have inflicted upon the franchise (this one, though, speaks in electronic noises that only Raf, one of the humans, can understand), Starscream is a self-serving little worm, etc. I do like Arcee, though. She seems to have potential for interesting character development, and I hope that this is followed through with in the show.
The humans are useless and not well characterised, at least in these two episodes. Jack is a teen with issues about being treated like a grown up, Raf is a midget with computer hacking skills, and Miko is the least Japanese Japanese exchange student ever, with a hyperactive personality. They’re more character archetypes than actual characters. This is, though, early days for Prime, and they could become very interesting with time.
I think the show’s trying to be somewhat like G1 in that there’s a fair few elements that seem like the original cartoon, aside from the cast being almost entirely derived from 1980s characters. Finding and obtaining energon is again a key plot point, the Autobots transform and roll out, and everyone stands around shooting at each other. Oh, and Peter Cullen and Frank Welker are back. I really like Cullen’s Prime voice, it’s got this gravitas to it that it’s gained through age. Welker is…alright. His Megatron voice is basically the one he did for G1 Megatron, with some different tones because he can’t do the original voice anymore (see: the movie games). I honestly did not have any feelings towards it. It’s a generic evil villain voice, for a generic evil villain.
Lest you think I hated everything, I really liked the animation. It was very smoothly animated, with some parts almost like a feature film in terms of attention to detail and lighting. I hope this isn’t just for the initial episodes, because it is very pretty. The character designs work when animated, which is good. The music was also rather good-I suspect it’s derived from the live-action movies, but it’s more likely to be original for the series. The overall presentation of the show was very good, almost like watching a film.
I’m also intrigued by the dark energon. We saw that it can turn dead robots into rabid zombie robots (oh, poor Cliffjumper. He got really banged up, first killed, then resurrected, then chopped in half, then blown up. He’d be like the Waspinator of the show if it were played for laughs), and I’d like to see where this idea goes. Starscream and Megatron both refer to it as ‘the blood of Unicron’, which makes me interested to watch if Unicron appears later in the series. Finally, Megatron jamming a spike of dark energon in his spark chamber at the end of the second episode (while Starscream freaks out about what it could do) leaves me wanting to watch the next episode to see what happens to him as a result. If it creates zombies from dead robots, what does it do to living ones?
In conclusion, I found Prime to be very nicely presented, with some interesting story twists, but an overall mediocre experience compared to Animated, the current bar for story telling in the franchise, according to Hasbro.
Eeeeh.
I’m finding it somewhat, erm, mediocre at the moment. I suppose Animated was a hard act to follow, but I’m not entirely into Prime.
What I think the main reason for that is that the characters were really not very well established. Animated had two scenes showing us the main Autobots and Decepticons, their names, and some of their personalities, like Bumblebee’s thing for speed and Blitzwing’s multiple personalities. Prime gives us a ‘cold open’ of sorts, with Cliffjumper and Arcee out on patrol and coming across a bunch of Decepticon drones. While we learn about the other Autobots and Decepticons later, it’s not really in a way that shows us their personalities. In any case, none of them are particularly special. Prime is, well, like most other Primes, Bumblebee is the mute that the movies have inflicted upon the franchise (this one, though, speaks in electronic noises that only Raf, one of the humans, can understand), Starscream is a self-serving little worm, etc. I do like Arcee, though. She seems to have potential for interesting character development, and I hope that this is followed through with in the show.
The humans are useless and not well characterised, at least in these two episodes. Jack is a teen with issues about being treated like a grown up, Raf is a midget with computer hacking skills, and Miko is the least Japanese Japanese exchange student ever, with a hyperactive personality. They’re more character archetypes than actual characters. This is, though, early days for Prime, and they could become very interesting with time.
I think the show’s trying to be somewhat like G1 in that there’s a fair few elements that seem like the original cartoon, aside from the cast being almost entirely derived from 1980s characters. Finding and obtaining energon is again a key plot point, the Autobots transform and roll out, and everyone stands around shooting at each other. Oh, and Peter Cullen and Frank Welker are back. I really like Cullen’s Prime voice, it’s got this gravitas to it that it’s gained through age. Welker is…alright. His Megatron voice is basically the one he did for G1 Megatron, with some different tones because he can’t do the original voice anymore (see: the movie games). I honestly did not have any feelings towards it. It’s a generic evil villain voice, for a generic evil villain.
Lest you think I hated everything, I really liked the animation. It was very smoothly animated, with some parts almost like a feature film in terms of attention to detail and lighting. I hope this isn’t just for the initial episodes, because it is very pretty. The character designs work when animated, which is good. The music was also rather good-I suspect it’s derived from the live-action movies, but it’s more likely to be original for the series. The overall presentation of the show was very good, almost like watching a film.
I’m also intrigued by the dark energon. We saw that it can turn dead robots into rabid zombie robots (oh, poor Cliffjumper. He got really banged up, first killed, then resurrected, then chopped in half, then blown up. He’d be like the Waspinator of the show if it were played for laughs), and I’d like to see where this idea goes. Starscream and Megatron both refer to it as ‘the blood of Unicron’, which makes me interested to watch if Unicron appears later in the series. Finally, Megatron jamming a spike of dark energon in his spark chamber at the end of the second episode (while Starscream freaks out about what it could do) leaves me wanting to watch the next episode to see what happens to him as a result. If it creates zombies from dead robots, what does it do to living ones?
In conclusion, I found Prime to be very nicely presented, with some interesting story twists, but an overall mediocre experience compared to Animated, the current bar for story telling in the franchise, according to Hasbro.