Russell Nash

A movie that feels like being in a traffic jam. In traffic jams you move a few feet or inches and stop. With this film, you have conversations that move the story along between excessively long effects sequences. The film isn’t as interesting as it thinks it is, and is a pretty poor start to the Star Trek film series.

I’m actually suprised at how well this show did critically and how well it did with viewers. I used to enjoy this show myself back when it aired, but on rewatch it was aged poorly. The show feels like a watered down version of Bay’s films down to the Transformers designs, the tone of the show, Poor humor, and how one dimension the characters were. As weird as it sounds, I actually started to prefer Bay’s films over this show. As bad as those films were at points (and I will say that from a critical point of view this show is better than those films), at least Bay’s over-the-topness gave those films a unique identity and personality. Heck, as bad as Energon and Beast Machines were, at least there are more elements I will remember about them. Prime just feels lifeless with a mostly serious tone that gets abruptly interrupted with childish humor usually from Miko or Fowler, Miko being a character that gives Kicker from Energon and Nightscream from Beast Machines a run for their money as the most annoying characters in the franchise. Prime and Bumblebee all feel like watered down versions of their movie selves and Megatron just feels like a crazier version of himself, in all I felt that Peter Cullen and Frank Welker’s efforts were wasted on these duller versions of the characters. Bulkhead and Acree felt like watered down versions of Bulkhead and Prowl from Animated. I will say that Ratchet was pretty good since he came off as cranky like Animated’s version, but Jeffery Comb’s voice gave the character a different feel. Also, Starscream and Knockout were pretty good as well. But honestly that’s about all I liked other than the animation and music being pretty good. That said, G1 and Armada had some poor animation and dialogue at points but I liked those shows more since they had more developed and interesting characters. Not to mention sometimes better plotting, one episode of Prime mentions a device that will be powerful enough to destroy three states. However, Silas attempts to destroy the device in a “if I cant have it nobody will” scenario. Does Silas not know about the dangers or is he just crazy? While the other shows in the franchise had some questionable plotting, at least they were entertaining enough for me to be invested and not think about the plot holes. Heck, this show even managed to make Unicron boring. In G1 and Armada, he was not only a threat since he can deatroy planets, but also manipulated events to his way. Since Unicron is the Earth, we know he can’t ever reawaken since that would destroy the Earth and I knew that would never happen. The one thing I remember Unicron doing was taking over Megatron’s body (but he didn’t become Galvatron), and this made Megatron renounce his evil ways... for some reason? As an aside, I also hated the holier than thou attitude towards the character of Optimus Prime, everyone treats him like a saint and no one questioned his authority even at some decisions. Not to mention that he gets his memory wiped to before the war started when he gets his memory back without consequences. Also, the Autobots seem nearly invincible as that can tear through hordes of Decepticons. This is Star Trek Voyager levels of no consequences and it makes the stakes seem less than they should be. So in all, Prime I just find to be a dull show that makes me wonder why we live in a world were Animated never got a season 4, but this show is revered with praise and even awards. But me for this is were the franchise became a duller, washed-out version of itself.