Okay, so it goes without saying that I was really disappointed with the Transformers Prime episode “Orion Pax, Part 3” this past Saturday. I was a bit vocal about it over here on Tumblr—thank you to everyone who responded in kind, BTW, it’s good to know I’m not alone! What I have not been very…
Okay, so it’s word vomit time, now that I’ve had time to fully absorb and think things over a bit. I don’t think I’ll be able to hit everything I want to, and this will probably be a little… disorganized, but it should be readable. Alright then. Let’s do this thing.
I agree with most everything you’ve said in this essay, and I very much like the way you’ve rewritten certain parts. These episodes did feel quite lazy, story-telling wise, and the first episode was mostly boring, imho. If someone who’d missed the first season had begun with the season 2 premiere, I don’t think they would have kept watching. I don’t think I would have, at least.
I vehemently despise the writers tendency to have the humans as dispensers of “wisdom” - the Autobots are older than humanity, what can one pre-teen human know about perseverance compared to them? Raf’s little story actually bothered me, it was so forced and then they brought it up TWICE.
I would have kept Sierra in, though. I might have changed her lines quite a bit, but I would have kept her involved, having her find out about the Autobots, or at least setting her up to find out later. She could be a good counterpoint to Miko (who seems to have gotten more annoying) - a young, reasonably mature girl who can ask probing questions, while remaining feminine. I would have liked to introduce a character who questions the black and white morality presented to her - it’s not like she’s super-innocent herself, she helps with illegal street racing. I mean, Sierra is, mostly, a blank slate at this point - they could do almost anything with her character! Instead, she gets to be “shallow love interest”. With a touch of “bad girl/party girl” thrown in for extra sex appeal. I’m not impressed.
Thank you for pinpointing why I disliked that scene with the troopers kicking OP around. Even if the writers had needed them to be aggressive towards him, there are better ways it could have been done. It should definitely have been more justified, and shorter. A disciplining, not a beatdown. And although I liked the line about getting to beat up the fearsome Optimus Prime (I don’t remember the actual words at all), it would have much much better if it had been understated, or if one of them had said, “This is for (name), you monster! I watched you turn my best friend into scrap metal!”
Is my soft spot for mooks showing? Drat.I was wondering about the zombies too, though I was guessing that maybe they’d eaten each other, or run out of dark energon. Or something. I didn’t wonder long because that scene with Arcee looking out at dead Cybertron was surprisingly heartbreaking. Surprisingly because I was expecting them to just get going. I love the bit about not noticing due to preoccupation with the war.
And I had such high hopes for the Insecticon. I wanted it to be all stealthy-like, following them into Vector Sigma, and maybe even sending the coordinates to Soundwave. Another way they could have added tension is to have it waiting in the shadows, making the audience wonder “when, when will it pounce?” It reminded me of the trolls in Willow, which did basically what I’ve described and gave me nightmares to boot. H
ush I was a little kid last time I watched that movie.I like that idea, actually, I might have to pump out a drabble or two.
The scraplets really REALLY irked me. First of all, their presence is questionable. Why haven’t they already eaten all of Cybertron? Why didn’t they chew through the doors to Vector Sigma earlier? Did THEY eat the zombies? Why aren’t they attracted to Jack’s spacesuit, or at least the metal bits of it?
Second, why is an Insecticon tastier than Vector Sigma? After showing VS glowing so very brightly in scraplet-vision, it seems like it would be more attractive than anything else. I expected them to look at the Insecticon, shrug, and get back to their delicious Sigma cake. And why in the world did the Insecticon fall apart so quickly? Falling off the bridge was the cherry on the cliche sundae.I’m not even going to touch on the horrid Fowler-June moments. Just no. No. Nononono.
The loss of OP’s memory again at the end of the threeparter bothers me. Why did he lose his memory? Isn’t he just gaining back his Prime memories, in addition to what he’s just experienced? Before that, are they honestly saying that Optimus Prime didn’ remember being Orion Pax AT ALL? It stands to reason that if steals Pax’s memories in exchange for Prime’s that time, it must have also done so before. Which is a problem - if Prime doesn’t remember his early life on Cybertron, what motivates him to fight? In the first little while after becoming Prime, wouldn’t he have to relearn of the injustices of Cybrtronian society?
Wait, does Optimus Prime not remember those injustices at all? Is he like some sort of indoctrinated warrior who knows nothing off the cause for the war except what the high council told him? That’s actually really creepy. IF they bring it up. Which they probably won’t. :\Anyways, moving on. I really wish they had focussed more on Megatron’s very personal feelings of betrayal. I mean, we get it. Megsy is a stone-cold badass who stabbed himself in the spark with dark energon, who can raise the dead, who makes the ground tremble with his passage, who fought Unicron, who yaddayaddayadda enough already. It’s gotten a little on the flat side.
I agree, bringing in those old ties would have sold me on OP’s vow to stop the Autobots. I had feelings as it was - I would have been sobbing brokenheartedly if he had been shown as siding with one friend against the other.I’m worried about what’s going to happen to Breakdown. They showed him as sympathetic - I have a bad feeling he’ll defect to the Autobots and promptly die, or die in a heroic sacrifice. If the writers had been more on the ball, I would be worried that he’ll be punished by Megatron, or maybe Soundwave, for accepting a false status report. Which makes me sad but it’s not as bad as him dying stupidly. As it is though, I’m mostly worried about the redemption=death trope.
Finally, I really, REAAAAALLY wanted a callback to “Sweet rims~” My want for that was tangible. I was sorely disappointed.
Wait, no… one last thing. I was also disappointed that Starscream was stealing energon out of hunger and had been searching for so long. That means he hasn’t been searching for backup, like TC and Warp, and that he hasn’t been planning and stockpiling. It pretty much kills all my ideas for what he could have been doing.
…Unless he was lying. I would like that.
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xarratha: Robots and Social Consciousness: [METAPOST] Innocent Amnesiac or Blank Slate?: A Critical...
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