War for Cybertron is the Grim & Gritty Transformers Series I Didn't Really Want

 After watching the last two seasons of Voltron on Netflix, I still had my subscription for a few weeks, so I figured I might as well watch some other stuff.  I remembered they had done a Transformers series (or three series really) that went with the latest line of toys, so on Thanksgiving morning I started watching.

"War for Cybertron" is three series of 6 parts.  The first part is "Siege" that takes place on the Transformers homeworld of Cybertron.  This is before the Transformers went to Earth.  Basically the Autobots and Decepticons have been fighting for a while and the Decepticons have the upper hand.  But Optimus Prime has a bold idea to flee the planet and rebuild--and take the precious artifact the "Allspark" with him.  All they need is a little energon...and a lot of luck.

I was really not happy with some of the characterization in this.  Optimus is kind of a dumbass most of the time.  Bumblebee is a smart-mouthed scavenger who doesn't work for either side.  And my beloved Jetfire is a Decepticon who is head of the "Seekers" or the air wing of the Decepticons, though Starscream is always trying to take over.  With Jetfire especially I wish just once they'd hire someone who actually knows about Transformers lore to write these things.  At least someone who might read the file card and stuff from the 1980s figure to actually get this shit right.  Jetfire is a scientist, not a warrior, though he is badass at that too, but he believes in advancing society through technology--sort of like how Elon Musk wishes people thought of him.  But he does at least get a character arc in turning away from the Decepticons to join the Autobots, though he's still kind of a dick a lot of the time.  Really wish they'd consulted me about how to write Jetfire.

The change to Bumblebee while it gives his character an arc--that involves boarding the Ark!--it again isn't really true to how he's supposed to be.  He's supposed to be a spy/scout who always has to prove himself because of his size.  Still, I suppose it's better than the Bay movies, which is a pretty low bar.

Elita-1 is the character who really stands out in this and the second series.  She becomes Optimus's second-in-command after Ultra Magnus surrenders and is brutally killed.  And then she refuses to leave Cybertron with Optimus, electing to stay behind on the mostly-dead world and lead what's left of the Autobot resistance.  In many ways she's a better leader and more heroic than Optimus and you have to wonder why she didn't get the Matrix.  I guess even robots can be sexist.

For Megatron they mostly use the IDW Comics version of a robot who rejected being a miner and was subsequently forced to be a gladiator, where he gained fame and followers before leading a revolution.  But by this point like many revolutions, his cause has been corrupted.  While he claims to want the best for Cybertron, he really wants what's best to keep him in power.

As usual Starscream is the treacherous coward who's always trying to take power.  Shockwave is the mad scientist and Soundwave the loyal lieutenant.  Most of the Autobots are drawn less well.  Many are simply there.  Wheeljack is the Autobot mad scientist, Red Alert a battle medic (which again is a deviation from the original character), Ratchet a medic/engineer who operates a clinic that doesn't pick sides, and Prowl an ex-cop.  Like the original 80s cartoon, some characters just come and go while others like Mirage are mostly defined by their gimmicks.

At the end of the first series, the Allspark and Ark both disappear from Cybertron.  Sometime later, a ship is approaching the Ark, which we think must be Megatron, right?  Um, no.

The second six-episode series is called "Earthrise" though Earth really doesn't appear until the last episode.  It's revealed the ship that finds the Ark is headed by Doubledealer, who as you might guess is a mercenary bot.  He takes the Ark to Charr, where the Autobots are judged by a mad Quintesson.  But of course they escape and find a space station that's stuck halfway in a space bridge and terrorized by Scorponok.

The characterization of Scorponok was pretty lame.  Part of the problem is the original Scorponok was part of the Headmasters line, where he was bonded with Lord Zarak, the head of an evil faction on the planet Nebulos or Nebulon or whatever.  But they couldn't do all that stuff with this show, so Scorponok is pretty much just a massive beast.  Pretty lame.

Megatron shows up and together the Decepticons and Autobots defeat Scorponok but the station and space bridge are blown up.  The Ark ends up in the "Dead Universe," which is something that was in the IDW comics as sort of a Purgatory for Transformers sparks.  In this case it's inhabited by Sky Lynx, who helps guide Optimus to use the Matrix to free them.  Meanwhile, Megatron is visited by Galvatron, his future self, who tries to change his fate by trying to get the Matrix and destroy Optimus.

Ultimately they escape the Dead Universe and wind up in orbit of Earth.  There's a fight between the Autobots, Decepticons, and Doubledealer's mercs before the Autobot and Decepticon ships crash, where we find out they're not in the present or even the 1980s but in the distant past.  And there are Transformers there!

The third six-story series "Kingdom" merges the original Autobots and Decepticons with the mid-90s Beast Wars Maximals and Predacons.  And it could have been great, but it kind of wasn't.  A big part of it was I don't think they really got any of the original voice actors.  Some of them like BlackArachnia, Rhinox, and Cheetor sound pretty close, but others like Optimus Primal, Rattrap, and especially Tigatron don't sound anything like them.  Or really act anything like the original characters either.

The gist is the Autobots-Maximals and the Decepticons-Predacons have to find the "Allspark," which is dying because it's so far away from Cybertron.  The Maximals and Autobots defeat the Predacons and Decepticons and return to Cybertron only to find it dead.  Then they have to battle Galvatron and Nemesis Prime--an evil Optimus from another timeline--to restore the Allspark and save the planet.

The gist is that really Megatron was right that Optimus shouldn't have launched the Allspark.  Which really makes Optimus kind of a dupe.  But if Optimus hadn't done it, Megatron would likely have overrun the planet.  So I guess he was wrong, but for the right reasons?  And Megatron was right but for the wrong reasons?  Or something.

Overall I didn't really like this series all that much.  It's nice this wasn't as goofy as some Transformers series like the Bumblebee Cyberverse one that was running at pretty much the same time, but it leans too far into the grim and gritty.  The good Transformers series like Beast Wars and Transformers Prime manage to balance so it's not too goofy kiddie-oriented and not too grim and depressing.  Stuff like Ultra Magnus being tortured to death and then Megatron talking to his head like Yorick's skull in Hamlet and then later Decepticons being harvested by Megatron and Shockwave for their energy goes a bit too far to the grim side.

While I get a lot of the original voice actors were pretty old and some were probably dead, some of the ones they got for this show were not great at all.  Optimus Prime especially kind of sucked.  Sometimes the actor could sound sort of Peter Cullen-ish but other times he sounds like a WWE wrestler.  Optimus Primal has sort of the same problem, though it wasn't the same person.  Elita-1 is OK but sometimes sounds like she's from Minnesota or Canada.  Tigatron's, as I mentioned, was pretty bad.  Jetfire's was this snarly voice that again doesn't really fit how the character should be and again he often seems like a dick.

One weird thing is for a show that's supposed to be advertising lines of toys, they spend more time showcasing Generations Select or Diaclones or whatever the hell some of them are supposed to be than the original toys.  Those are basically repaints of characters like Bumblebee, Wheeljack, Starscream, Soundwave, etc.  They get a lot of time, especially those in Doubledealer's crew, while characters like Tracks, Grapple, Hoist, and the Micromasters never even appear.  They probably could have included more characters if they'd had more than 6 episodes per show.

There were some good things like the relationship between Optimus and Elita, the character development of Bumblebee, and the noble sacrifice of Dinobot calling back to the epic Beast Wars episode "Code of Hero."

So while these weren't terrible shows, they weren't really great either.  I appreciate the attempt to make a more mature Transformers series, but they took it too far.  Mostly I think if they'd had more than 18 episodes they could have done more and maybe had a chance to lighten in up a little.