The much-anticipated Netflix TV show based around Hasbro's now year-old War for
Cybertron: Siege toyline debuted a couple of days ago, and I decided to watch
its six-episode opening chapter today. My initial impression of it was simply
that the frame rate was higher than the awful Machinima shows based around the
Prime Wars trilogy of toylines. Aside from that... there's honestly not much good I
can say about it. It's OK... but suffers from the same problems that plague a
lot of modern TV, in that it feels like it was written with a particular conclusion in mind, and everything else was written purely to achieve that conclusion. There
was also a real sense of cheapness to it, in that there wasn't much variety in
the body types of the robots. Literally all the background 'extras' were
repaints of the main characters, without even slight changes to their heads.
When a cheaply made cartoon from more than 35 years ago had more character
variety than a new CGI show, you pretty much know from the start that it ain't
going to be groundbreaking.
Now, because it's only just out, I'm going to try to avoid outright plot
spoilers... but be prepared, as there may be a few spoilerish details...
I have to confess straight away that it didn't hold my
attention particularly well. There were several points when, having glanced away
from the screen, I lost track of who was speaking because so many of the
characters sounded the same... I don't mind that they sounded nothing like
their old G1 selves (apart from Starscream, who had that generic "no-one's
ever going to be able to do it like Chris Latta" voice), nor do I mind that
they didn't call in any voice actors who had previously worked on TransFormers
shows. Better that they don't, really. I, for one, am tired of hearing Peter
Cullen's voice - resonant though it is - as Optimus Prime. While I'd love Garry Chalk to return the the role at some point, I like the idea of an entirely new cast, if only because it's one significant difference in a show that's otherwise largely recycling both characters and situations. But when you simply
can't tell who's speaking because literally everyone is doing a gruff voice, you have to
question the voice direction.
I did find it interesting that the story started with Bumblebee and Wheeljack on an
Energon-scavenging run, just like the pilot to the original G1 TV show... But
casting Bumblebee as such an arsehole was a bit of a mistake. Even when he
later changes his tune, he's not a sympathetic or engaging character, he's
simply behaving the way the plot dictates. Worse still, his change is brought about by an event that marks him as somehow special... but that specialness is wiped out only an episode or two later.
There are also real oddities in the way several other characters are dealt with. Given that Jetfire and Starscream have a canonical history thanks to previous media, it's weird to see their relationship altered so drastically from the start. Red Alert appears to have been confused with First Aid, as he's a medic throughout the series, and quite a dour one, at that: when Bumblebee notices the state of the Autobots in his makeshift triage clinic, he says something like "It may look bad, but I can assure you it's as bad as it looks" (not to nitpick, but it might have had more impact to say "it's worse than it looks"). When Ratchet finally shows up, he's another dour medic, with an added dash of "I don't fix things anymore", even though he's clearly spending his days fixing things. Worse still, his clinic appeared to be identical to Red Alert's, even down the specific body types and colourations of his patients. Mind you, looking back on the six episodes, I have to say that none of the characters had a great deal of character... They existed solely to facilitate the plot, which was pretty thin. Ironhide and Prowl barely do anything. Passing reference is made to Mirage's high-priced friends and former lavish lifestyle, but it's nothing more than a passing reference. I'm pretty sure that Starscream is the only Seeker to speak, apart from overlapping murmurs of agreement in a single scene.
A couple of things really bugged me about the show... Firstly, for a series called 'TransFormers: War for Cybertron: Siege', the robots didn't do a great deal of transforming. I could probably count on one hand the number of times they transformed on-screen, but on far too many occasions, the robots would move around on foot at times when it would have made far more sense to transform into their vehicle modes - escaping from the Decepticons, for example.
Similarly, in what should have been quick-fire action scenes, there was an awful lot of standing around doing nothing. This inevitably allowed characters to escape certain doom, whether by running away or just giving an ally ample time to intervene. I know that's a television cliché, designed to make it easier to cut to an ad break, but some of these pauses really dragged.
Then there's the character models. Wheeljack appears in his Earthrise robot form - because there never was nor ever will be a Siege version - and consequently never transforms. Bumblebee appears in a form seemingly derived from the IDW comics, and consequently never transforms. Elita-1 and Arcee are present in forms that are sort-of like the toys, but missing most of the car shell in their backpacks, and consequently... never transform. The Seekers just sort of fudge into their tetrajet modes, Skytread Flywheels never splits into his twin vehicle modes... Given that the CG models are based so closely on the toys, they should have been easy to animate with only a few liberties taken to ensure the vehicles/robots retained the appearance of having mass. Sideswipe is present, but Sunstreaker is not, because the latter wasn't given a Siege toy. The fact that the handful of body types present in the Siege toyline were recycled ad infinitum to fill in the ranks really lowered the tone of the whole thing, and gave the impression that Cybertron was (a) very sparsely populated and (b) populated by clones.
While it made for a dramatic image in the trailers, it made no sense whatsoever for Ultra Magnus to walk to the Decepticon stronghold wearing a cloak. It covered his head but, given the small number of body types in the show, I find it impossible to believe that he couldn't be easily identified by his massive shoulder columns and his colourscheme, yet he had to drop his hood before anyone recognised him. The way he was handled generally seemed bizarre - as Optimus Prime's military commander, it might make sense for him to question Prime's intents, but to surrender to the Decepticons in the hope that a civil conversation would somehow end the war just doesn't work... Plus, as I've mentioned before, Siege - the toyline - was pitched as being the start of the war on Cybertron... yet the Siege TV show makes it clear from the start that it's dealing with the conclusion of the war - one way or another... and it doesn't even feature a single siege, unless you count the pitiful battle in the final episode.
What it does feature is Shockwave's seemingly endless plans to destroy the Autobots. First there's the idea of using the AllSpark to reformat the Autobots into Decepticons (shades of Beast Machines), then there's using a virus to disable certain 'Autobot code' derived from a specific source... Who knows what else he might have come up with, given time. Granted, the latter somehow only disables Autobot bases and renders Bumblebee briefly unconscious, but it makes no sense that it affects Autobot technology without affecting the robots themselves. Then there were other such plot holes, like Ultra Magnus being able to communicate with the Autobots while in captivity, and the Decepticons being able to trace one of their number by their comm-unit, but only after it's removed (which, for whatever reason, is seen as undignified by some of the nearby Autobots). Plus, the Autobots' escape plan seemed a little under-developed and overly optimistic. Wheeljack was refitting the Ark, but they didn't have the Energon to launch at the start. Had they not found a space bridge in a semi-functional state, their whole plan would never have got off the ground. But then, if their original plan wasn't to fly the Ark through a space bridge, how far did they seriously expect to get before being shot down?
The name-dropping was... curious. In the first episode, Bumblebee mentions Velocitron - a planet from the Cybertron/Galaxy Force line - while Chromia (I think) has a throwaway line about something also being present "on Caminus" (one of Cybertron's colonies). 'Sector 7' is references several times as a location on Cybertron, while Iacon is mentioned by name... and it seems inconsistent (to say the least) for a planet to have both named locations and numbered sectors... Unless Sector 7 on Cybertron is like Area 51 on Earth. There were several times I thought I heard someone reference Tannhäuser Gates (from Blade Runner), but I gather it was actually either 'Tarnhauser' or 'Tarn-Hauser'.
Later in the series, it even did the whole 'Robot Zombie' schtick, without either context or explanation, and I'd swear that a character got ripped apart and seeminly killed, only to reappear later as if nothing had happened (though I confess I may have confused two characters with the same body type and similar colourschemes). The lack of variety in the robot zombies further emphasised how little variety there was in the character models.
So, bottom line, it's better than the Prime Wars cycle... but not by much. At only six episodes, I thought I'd have been wanting more, but it felt padded out as it was. Those six episodes feel like a single pilot that was re-edited into a series format, but I don't think it would have been better as a single 140-ish minute movie... It highlights how the toyline missed the mark, and how limited it was... but even in the small selection of characters on offer in the Siege toyline, there are some who barely got a single line of dialogue in the show. The fact that characters like Soundwave and Reflector/Refraktor didn't transform at all speaks for the makers' lack of confidence in their alternate modes, and the lack of transformations generally speaks for the show's over-modest budget.
Hasbro somehow captured lightning in a bottle with a cheap, crappy cartoon back in the 1980s. They've managed similar in recent years, with TransFormers: Animated and TransFormers Prime, both of which were cancelled prematurely. It looks as though each War for Cybertron series on Netflix is planned as only 6 episodes, so I think we can be confident that it'll reach its planned conclusion... the only question is "will anyone care?", since it looks as though it'll be running a year behind the toyline, and they're not exactly cramming a whole lot of story into those six episodes.
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