TIL ALL ARE ONE | A TRANSFORMERS Complete Retrospective - 4

disclaimer this video contains spoilers for these Transformers titles there are time codes in the description if you want to jump around everyone ready all right now let's do this we now return to the Transformers critical response to Transformers age of Extinction was perhaps the lowest it had been for any of the Transformers movies despite that the movie still managed to rake in a metric ton of money meaning that Paramount was full steam ahead on Transformers 5 which would need to find a new director to fill Michael Bay's shoes unless of course they just get Michael Bay back you know that could happen all the while a new TV series was on the way a sequel to Transformers Prime set to debut in the early months of 2015. Transformers robots in Disguise that's right it's got the same name as that other show from 2001. this version of robots in Disguise was given a full reveal at Comic-Con showing off the new animation style as well as teasing some of the cast both Autobot and human that were going to be the centerpiece of the upcoming series although the network it was set to air on the Hub was going through some changes since the partnership between Hasbro and Discovery was wasn't quite as fruitful as one would hope Discovery decided to take more control over the network redubbing it Discovery Family this was also in an attempt to broaden the audience for the channel instead of exclusively providing kids shows that being said Hasbro would still have some presence on the network providing plenty of content to fill the Network's schedule but Transformers would no longer be involved as mere Weeks Later the upcoming series robots in Disguise was instead shopped out to Cartoon Network returning Hasbro's business model to the pre-hub status quo make a show sell it to a network and then sell toys to the accumulated audience The Hub was now gone Hasbro's pushed to have more control over Transformers future was over and the future series could break from established Transformers Canon now no longer strapped to a more strict outline but hey as long as the new Transformer show gets out to fans then I think it'll be all right for now meanwhile Hasbro partnered with Rovio to create Angry Birds Transformers feed featuring plenty of movie inspired designs for the Angry Birds characters in an all-new mobile game seeing the autobirds take on the deceptahogs but for those purely interested in the live action side of Transformers they were in luck because after its theatrical run died down Transformers age of Extinction was released on Blu-ray and DVD on September 30th not only could you get the movie itself but you could also get a four disc 3D combo pack containing an all-new two-hour behind the scenes documentary chronicling the making of the latest installment from the casting of the new actors to the new vehicles most notably the creation of two different trucks for Optimus Prime as well as the lengthy shoot across the United States which included a brief featurette where Michael Bay talked about some of the technology involved in some of the sequences from the massive set design of building Hong Kong in Detroit and subsequently blowing it up to this backwards driving sequence that made use of this Advanced robotic arm that could maneuver the camera in and around the vehicle like nothing had ever done before and finally the turn to production in China the creation of the Dinobots followed by the work that ilm did to bring the robots to fruition as well as in a nice surprise a look into the creative process of Steve jablonski in creating the music for the movie even for fans who didn't like the movie there were still plenty of interesting stuff in here particularly in regards to massive scale Blockbuster filmmaking you can really only get with Michael Bay but with the press cycle for age of Extinction dying down and a year trickling to a close Hasbro decided to kick off the marketing push for Transformers robots in Disguise first releasing a teaser trailer that showed the new Autobot team facing off against a diverse and crazy Legion of Decepticons in a show geared to a fairly younger audience than Transformers Prime before it despite that plenty of older fans were still interested if not still critical of the new designs you know as they always are but the prospect of releasing a show without Optimus or Megatron could be a welcome change of pace and it all led to the year as the year kicked off so did award season for 2014's most accomplished movies or in the case of age of Extinction 2014's most reviled movies as once again Transformers was nominated for a slew of razzies and managed to take home the worst Director award and contribute to Kelsey grammer's worst supporting actor award now despite age of extinction's winnings and yet another cynically negative Razzie show would the movie still receive at least a little bit of Oscar love like its predecessors no age of Extinction was the first of the live-action Transformers movies to not be nominated for a single Oscar with the nominations for the technical categories instead going to many other films equally worthy of the knots it was disappointing but not exactly a surprise despite the Oscars shutout Paramount was still eager to get Transformers 5 off of the ground but as the weeks continued the prospect of releasing a fifth installment in 2016 was becoming more of a pipe dream especially considering that the more time passed the more it seemed Paramount wanted to bring back Michael Bay who was already working on another movie but they still made strides to move the fifth installment along hiring Akiva goldsmen to create a Cinematic Universe road map for Transformers obviously capitalizing on Marvel's immense success with their interconnected stories this was followed up with the creation of a writer's room with a sizable collection of writers working alongside Akiva Goldman to forge A New Path forward for the Blockbuster franchise could a Cinematic Universe approach breathe the new life into the Transformers movies will Michael Bay return to usher in this new era time would have to tell as always but fans were interested nonetheless meanwhile as news trickled out from Transformers 5 prep fans were able to turn their sights back to TV screens as the next series robots in Disguise was fast approaching with more teasers kicking off in the early months of the year a toy line fast approaching the sequel to Transformers Prime promised to be a show for all ages telling all new stories about the Transformers in all new ways eventually all led to March 4 13 where fans could head to Cartoon Network for the debut of robots in Disguise well in the U.S anyway because the show had been debuting in various other places around the world already like in Australia and New Zealand where the show premiered a full month earlier on February 21st in any case the show began and fans were able to take a journey to TV screens on whatever day it debuted in their country and experience the next chapter of the Transformers [Music] exercise [Music] picking up a couple years after the end of Transformers Prime Cybertron has been restored Optimus Prime is dead and Bumblebee is kind of A Beat cop training eager young rule-bound Cadets strong arm although once he gets a mysterious message from the late Optimus Prime telling him to go to Earth for a special Mission he ends up forming a team of unlikely Heroes consisting of the aforementioned strong arm the hot-headed speedsters sideswiped the Minicon fix it who has a malfunctioning voice box and Grimlock who is a much different take on the iconic Dinobot instead being a Decepticon who defects to join Bumblebee's team and they're all joined by Russell and his father Denny as they work together to recapture loose Decepticon set free after the prison ship alchemore crash landed on Earth in fact each week sees this ragtag team recapturing an all-new Decepticon fugitive it's a little repetitive but each Decepticon is distinct from one another and far more beast-like than practically anything seen in Prime this is an element that spiritually follows up on the 2001 show of the same name over the course of the season the show introduces the Decepticons underbite hammer strike bisque Chop Shop Terra shock thunderhoof filch mini Tron spring load ped quillfire malador clamp down night strike vertebrae octopunch Ground Pounder headlock Kickback scowl scratch Ziza pseudo and their quasi-leader steel jaw who takes the role of The Season's main villain assembling some of these decepticons to take control of the earth to make it their New Haven overall this series is geared far more towards younger audiences than prime before it the characters are pretty one note though that provides plenty of clarity when it comes to conflict and the lessons are pretty simplistic none of this is inherently a bad thing but it does create two distinct reactions of the series depending on what you knew going into it if you were a big fan of Transformers Prime and you were itching to see the next Adventures then you were probably a little disappointed in this show but for kids watching this getting exposed to Transformers for the first first time they probably had a blast I am unfortunately more in the former Camp I really like Prime and this show unfortunately does not live up to that but I am definitely not the target audience overall this show is all right the characters are likable and it's got some fun moments like an episode where a Decepticon turns Bumblebee into a childlike version of himself or an episode where sideswipe gets his head removed and the other Autobots have to get it back which is very reminiscent of the Headmaster stuff from animated there's even an episode where the Autobots face off malador and the skunkticons yeah skunkticons it's crazy there's even a bit where Grimlock does the flying tail kick thing that Godzilla did that one time foreign but perhaps the most fun the show has is with bumblebee taking on his new role as team leader he has big shoes to fill trying his damnedest to be as good of a leader as Optimus Prime in fact in a fun bit he even tries to mimic Optimus voice to unexpected results strong arm Sideswipe swipe there is no time for this foolishness we have a Galaxy relying on us and a mission to complete as the season continues the show introduces a handful of new supporting characters from Jazz who teaches sideswipe a valuable lesson about meeting your Heroes to the new Decepticon fracture who has two minicons air razor and dive bomb and they all face off against new Autobot Drift and his two minicons jetstorm and slipstream eventually fracture joins up with steel jaw and drift joins bumblebees team noting that while he has plenty of experience in the field even he can learn something new from bumblebee now despite the younger Target demographic the show still has a few things for fans of Transformers Prime to chew on most specifically the occasional appearance by Optimus Prime while at first he merely has a spiritual presence inside Bumblebee's mind it is later revealed that he is being tested and trained by micronus one of the original 13 primes so that he might eventually return to Earth to defeat an ancient evil of some kind this ancient evil is also the reason Optimus sent bumblebee to Earth in the first place and also leads to the eventual arrival of windblade alright the first fan built bot has made the Breakthrough to TV now that's cool here it is revealed that she was sent to Earth Long Ago by Primus himself to also defeat this ultimate Evil all of which leads towards the two-part season finale titled Battlegrounds where the ultimate Evil is revealed to be none other than the first Decepticon megatronus that's right it is one of the original 13 primes in fact the one who betrayed the other 12 murdering one in the process those more familiar with the live action continuity might be more familiar with his pseudonym the Fallen I guess if the show isn't going to have Megatron be the big bad megatronus is the next best thing and certainly something bigger than B and his team have faced in the show so far which leaves the question can they defeat him well they won't be alone because at the same time Optimus Prime is alerted to megatronus's arrival and convenes with the other original primes man this finale is going crazy with the prime stuff even more so than the show literally called Prime but despite the primes not believing Optimus to be ready they each give him a piece of their spark so that he can journey to Earth to stop this ultimate Evil once and for all [Music] Optimus Prime is back let's go dude and with his return he begins a massive Showdown with megatronus but there's just one thing this season so far has been about Bumblebee learning to be a leader and this team learning to work together so what does Optimus fighting megatronus have to do with that story well in keeping with what the season has done so far Bumblebee's strong arm and sideswipe do end up being the ones to defeat megatronus combining their weapons and getting a massive power boost all leading to megatronus being incinerated it's a little violent for this show but Bumblebee and his team have saved the day which while a little sudden it is satisfying to see this team be unified after their constant bickering up until now but with that the ultimate Evil has been vanquished and the Autobots don't have to hang out on Earth anymore but with steel Jaws still at large each of the Autobots decide to stay as part of Bumblebee's team even Optimus Prime If I Stay it would no longer be as your leader but as you're equal [Music] I can work with that and that is the end of season one while not a groundbreaking conclusion like Optimus losing his memories or the Glorious return of Megatron it's satisfying enough for this fairly alright season of Television the show introduced a handful of fun characters and ideas took things in a New Direction after Prime's conclusion and overall has a little bit of Promise going into season two I mean if Optimus is going to be part of the roster going forward then they already got my viewing because that sounds like fun while robots in Disguise was captivating kids Minds on television news regarding the big screen future was coming through at a steady Pace after the assembly of the Transformers writer's room some ideas started to come out regarding the future one idea was a Cybertron prequel film confusingly titled Transformers one which we already have at Transformers one but that's okay another idea floated around was the potential for a bumblebee solo film while both ideas were certainly interesting neither was officially confirmed and could only be examples of some of the ideas the writers were spitball but eventually some official news did come through with it confirmed that Akiva goldsmen would pen Transformers 5. working under the still unconfirmed assumption that Michael Bay and Mark Wahlberg would return on top of that Andrew barrer and Gabrielle Ferrari were set to write an animated film set on Cybertron so I guess that idea did make it past the spitballing phase but that's only two movies surely the combined efforts of 13 Riders can come up with more right well as confirmed by Stephen Davis of Hasbro during a keynote The Writer's room actually plotted out the franchise's future all the way to 2025. 10 years into the future man Paramount sure has a lot of confidence in this franchise which wasn't unwarranted the last two made over a billion dollars so why not plan ahead for not only Transformers 5 but 6 7 8 and so on until the heat death of the universe Star Wars is doing it why can't Transformers while the future of the franchise on the big screen was certainly expansive or intimidating if you weren't aren't a fan of the films up to this point there was still some excitement to be had in the here and now as Transformers was set to hit video game consoles once again in the fall of 2015. Transformers Devastation was announced at E3 2015 followed up by more information at Comic-Con and a steady influx of information in the following months all leading up to its October 6th release the game featured glorious cell-shaded models for the classic G1 Transformers giving fans tons of eye candy for the most iconic designs in the franchise players could play as Optimus Prime Bumblebee wheel Jack Sideswipe and Grimlock to face off against Decepticons and insecticons in massive brawling Arenas developed by Platinum Games Devastation proved to be a success among long time Transformers fans especially those sick of the increasingly disparate movie designs not only could players battle against generic Decepticons but also against some of the most iconic from Megatron to Starscream to Shockwave sound wave and even combiners Devastator and menasor garnering positive reviews Transformers Devastation was another video game success while not quite as rousing as the Cybertron games before it was a welcome addition for new and old fans alike in the following weeks as the year 2015 Drew to a close news continued to circulate on the development of Transformers 5. starting with Hasbro announcing its own Cinematic Universe Beyond Transformers from properties like GI Joe and mask achiva goldsman was subsequently tasked with Heading an all-new writer's room for Hasbro's Cinematic Universe as such he would no longer have the time to pen the script for Transformers 5. so writing responsibilities were passed down to Art Markham Matt Holloway and Ken Nolan who were also part of the Transformers writers room together building off the work of Kiva goldsmen had already done they would write Transformers 5. at the same time Mark Wahlberg confirmed that he would return as Cade Yeager for the fifth installment it was unclear if anyone else from Age of Extinction would return but by far the biggest question mark was whether or not Michael Bay would return to direct but eventually news on that front came through as the clock turned to the year because it was on January 4th that Michael Bay officially confirmed he was directing Transformers 5 which garnered the usual variety of positive and negative responses some wanted him to stick around others were desperate for someone else to take the reins either way Transformers 5 was underway and the Machine got moving fast with it not only confirmed that production would start in may 2016 but Paramount officially gave release dates to some of their other future movies Transformers 5 was set for June 23 2017 followed by a bumblebee solo film on June 8 2018 and Transformers 6 set for June 28 2019. with presumably more Transformers movies after that should these prove successful while the Bumblebee movie would have a smaller budget Paramount was clearly full steam ahead on the live-action franchise I guess all it takes is Michael Bay signing on for things to get moving because they're moving fast but the live action side of things wasn't all Transformers fans had to look forward to as they could eventually turn to TV screens on February 20th for the second season of Transformers robots in disguise [Music] in its sophomore season robots in Disguise continues many of the ideas strengths and weaknesses from the first season although in half the time as this season only consists of 13 episodes compared to season 1's 26. this time however the season focuses on two separate teams of Autobots as the first episode sees the much expanded crew divide and conquer to take down Decepticons one side has bumblebees strong arm Grimlock fix it Denny and Russell while the other side consists of Optimus Prime windblade sideswipe drift and his Minicon slipstream and jetstorm unfortunately however the Bumblebee side gets way more screen time than the Optimus side there's actually a five episode stretch where the Optimus side isn't seen at all it's a little unfortunate that that aspect isn't better balanced but bumblebee is the main character so but both sides are once again on the lookout for Decepticons as season 2 follows the monster of the week plotting from season 1 with an all-new barrage of deceptive cons including overload polar claw crazy bolts saber horn razor Paws simicore Stockade scorponok and glow strike but this season features more than just the regular Decepticons as many cons are featured far more prominently this time around with each Decepticon joined by a Minicon or a pair of mini cons including backtrack ransack slice dice glacious swelter torpor theorem Axiom bludgeon clout Hammer Anvil back fourth and Major Mayhem who has an army of identical clones by his side with the continuously expanding roster of villains the show sees no shortage of ideas and different ways to combat different enemies which is definitely one of the show's strongest aspects though ultimately if you weren't won over by season 1 season 2 probably won't change your mind but there's still plenty to enjoy for fans of the series like the introduction of the idea that the Autobots can scan different paint jobs to better disguise themselves in a different environment with without changing their vehicle mode where the fact that the animation this time around gets a bit of a boost there's some more complex camera movements and some set pieces that make good use of the show's art design although the show overall plays it really fast and loose with the fact that Humanity doesn't know about the Transformers I mean there are plenty of times in season 1 and 2 where the Autobots would definitely reveal themselves like this scene where Bumblebee and bisque fight in the middle of a sold out Rock concert but the concert is sci-fi themed so they're just passed off as really Advanced robot costumes and the world moves on like nothing happened despite that Transformers Prime fans were eating a little better this season as even though the Optimus side is not as prominent to focus as the Bumblebee side it's still nice to see Optimus becoming a major character again in fact this time around he's kind of wearing down a little bit which can kind of be seen as a metaphor for how long this character has been around you know because he's getting older though he's a little incredulous about that at first which is strange I don't like having Saloon little Intel Optimus especially when you're not feeling so well your concern is irrelevant with blade that's kind of rude Optimus but hey at least you're not threatening to kill her like some other primes I know but the nods to Transformers Prime don't end with Optimus as the show even brings back the shadow zone as Bumblebee gets trapped inside he even name drops Jack Mikko and RAF which considering Bumblebee's relationship with Raph in the last show it's weird that name drop didn't happen earlier but with the return of the Shadow Zone also comes the return of sound wave in all his silent slender glory and he's immediately the most fearsome foe this ragtag team of Autobots has ever faced while the Autobots do work together to trap sound wave in the shadow zone once again his brief appearance is enough to make this Transformers Prime fan a little happier all of this however leads to the two-part finale titled Decepticon Island it's here that the autobot team is finally reunited and on top of that are joined by another Prime Alum ratchet once again voiced by Jeffrey Combs oh man it's good to see ratchet again and he's even got his own Minicon undertone although he does come with dire news regarding the current state of Cybertron stating Over time however I learned they blamed Optimus and those who followed him for the ruination of our world and they wanted to forget he ever existed some real Bleak news from Cybertron but there's no time to dwell on that as our expanded roster of Autobots set out on a mission to take down Decepticon Island which is really just a crashed spaceship but it puts them face to face against steel jaw and an army of Decepticons leading to a multi-front battle where the Autobots break off and battle a couple Decepticons each which also results in Optimus Prime and Bumblebee teaming up to face off against steeljaw in a pretty big Showdown ultimately the Autobots are able to set off a stasis bomb inside of the ship putting all of the Decepticons into stasis lock even even steeljaw which kind of brings a sense of closure to the whole ordeal which is nice as such wind blade and Ratchet Journey with the imprisoned Decepticons back to Cybertron along with Optimus Prime who wishes to investigate The Bleak circumstances ratchet talked about earlier all the while the rest of the team that remains drives off into the sunset bringing season two to a close while certainly shorter than season one The sophomore season had a few more high points there were references and callbacks and nods here and there that would keep older fans a little more engaged and overall the character conflicts and stories became a little more diverse and engaging for new fans this time around overall another fairly alright season of Television one that would certainly please its target audience while still not really grabbing the older audiences which is unfortunate all the while as robots in Disguise truck through its second season news was flowing steadily from Transformers 5. in the weeks leading up to the start of production casting news was afoot with Isabella moner and Gerard Michael joining the cast but that was just a Prelude as mere days after that confirmation the official Transformers Instagram page posted this video oh boy the fifth installment is officially called Transformers the last night clearly keeping up with the night Motif that was present in Age of Extinction from optimus's new design to the Dinobots who were referred to as knights in the movie ultimately the title revealed once again sparked speculation and this reveal was followed up a couple weeks later with the reveal of Megatron's new face that's right I said Megatron turns out the fifth installment might just abandon the Galvatron thing altogether and go back to Megatron who knows following that as production began in Cuba at the end of May more casting news was afoot starting off with the official return of Josh demell alright Lennox is back after skipping age of Extinction the main military man from the first three was coming back for the last night following that was the addition of Anthony Hopkins and Laura haddock to the cast which all led to the start of production in Arizona in June 2016 where a couple set photos and videos were released revealing the new look for Bumblebee a new look for Hound the potential addition of wreckgar and the return of barricade in an all-new form following that production headed to Detroit for some more destruction in Carnage as well as the reveal of a new character squeaks and the reveal of drift's new look this was also followed by the reveal of this billboard which showed Optimus Prime going up against a three-headed dragon I mean Transformers has already done Godzilla why not add Ghidorah to the franchise overall however set photos and videos were few and far between this time around but Paramount did keep the conversation going with the official reveals of the robot cast not only revealing the looks of returning characters like bumblebee Hound crosshairs drift as well as the already revealed squeaks but revealing the new designs for barricade and the Decepticon leader Megatron which is perhaps the most fearsome designed for the big guy yet and on top of that there was the reveal of the latest addition to the cast hot rod who didn't resemble the G1 version of the character whatsoever which was disappointing to plenty of fans but perhaps hot rod can bring in an interesting angle to the new story Transformers 5 is telling and as the summer continued production headed across the pond first filming in Scotland before moving to the UK for the remaining bulk of filming which also resulted in a slight controversy when the production draped Nazi Flags over Winston Churchill's house for a flashback scene so that's kind of crazy meanwhile as news was circulating around the last night and all new Transformers web series produced by Machinima was released online in fact it was the first of a Trilogy of series under the prime Wars Banner the first one titled combiner Wars aired across August and September 2016 and it was met with very negative reception fans did not really care for this show citing its poor production value subpar voice acting and overall going way too dark for the source material in turn kind of missing the point of Transformers it did bring in Wind blade however as well as in a very brief appearance victorion an all-female Autobot combiner team who were also created by fans in the second buildabot poll which is neat despite those appearances however the show was underwhelming to say the least but it wasn't the only Transformer series coming out as robots in Disguise was returning to Airwaves for its third season or was it the continuation of season two because this is only supposed to be an additional six episodes and Hasbro confirmed season 3 doesn't air until 2017. so what is happening I have no idea but in any case six more episodes of robots in Disguise were on their way set to debut on October 22nd or actually if you were in Canada you'd get the six episodes early starting on September 10th in fact you'd get to see all six episodes before a single one aired in the U.S so that's crazy either way at some point in the fall of 2016 the next six episodes of robots in Disguise aired and fans could tune into their TVs for the next set of Adventures for Bumblebee and his ragtag team of Autobots [Music] season 2.5 as it is dubbed by TF Wiki does only consist of six episodes but don't let the rapper fool you because these six episodes are some of the strongest in the show so far for one thing the premise is far more serialized than before allowing for longer more nuanced character arcs and lessons most notably sideswipe at one point offends minicon's jetstorm slipstream and fix it and after realizing how much he actually cares about them he takes a blast for them it's nothing spectacular but it's nice to see some growth with these characters now while season 2.5 is more serialized there are still elements that carry over from the first two seasons like the introduction of a handful of new Decepticons parallon scatter Spike Thermador and clot trap are introduced and with them are seven brand new Mini cons Buzz strike Sawtooth tricera shot lancelon bash breaker wind strike and Aero bolt who are more than meets the eye because these mini cons can transform into weapons able to Grant the user an immense surge of power or control the user bending them to the minicon's will on top of that if all seven minicons are combined with a host the host gains unimaginable power power that the show States is greater than that of a prime and this attracts the attention of the show's best villain by far the one and only treacherously cunning Starscream alright star screams back gotta love that good looking trickster and he is looking good here as it turns out he managed to escape from the Predacons after the conclusion of prime and fashioned himself a new body all the while discovering the power that the minicons held and better yet upon arriving on Earth he gets his hands on the dark star saber once wielded by Megatron the dudes even got his own team by his side shade lock razor horn and rough Edge it's nice to see a villain who outmatches the autobot team in a pretty significant way you know they've been dealing with d-listers this whole time but between this and sound wave before they're facing off against the best of the best it's also nice to see that once Starscream manages to combine the powers of the seven minicons infusing himself with their power he actually becomes quite intimidating with all of the treachery sometimes it's nice to see Starscream be genuinely frightening but it all leads to a final standoff where the Autobots now joined by Optimus Prime must free the minicons and stop Starscream ultimately leading to arable joining forces with Optimus giving him a surge of energy and joined by the Autobots beside him they all managed to separate the minicons from Starscream and defeat him once and for all while kind of sudden it does go quite a ways to show that this ragtag team has come a long way they've grown a lot and despite the rocky road to get to this point it's a little gratifying to have taken the journey along with them as such Starscream and the Decepticons are taken into custody Optimus returns to space still investigating the current status of Cybertron and the Seven minicons are now free to venture out into the cosmos where no one will ever harm them ever again to me these six episodes along with the sound wave episode are probably good recommendations for fans of Transformers Prime even if you don't want to watch the whole show these episodes are probably the closest you'll get to a true sequel but with the brief return having come to a close fans were left waiting once again for the next full season of robots in Disguise which wouldn't air until 2017. in the meantime however the movie side of things was heating up as production concluded on Transformers the last night in the fall of 2016 the marketing push was starting to get ramped up kicked off by an IMAX featurette in November while consisting mostly of footage from the previous movies it does show some behind the scenes footage showing off the IMAX 3D technology Michael Bay was using for the fifth installment providing fans their first good look at Transformers 5 with big explosions bayham nice looking cars it certainly looked like a Transformers movie this time with a medieval slant to things but despite this solid look at the upcoming movie fans were still hoping to see some real footage some Robot action thankfully the wait for that wasn't much longer as on December 5th Paramount released the first official trailer for Transformers the last night it has been said Through the Ages [Applause] without sacrifice there could be no Victory set to a cover of Do You Realize by The Flaming Lips this trailer shows off a very melancholy feel for this fifth installment the world is at war between humans and Transformers leading to some pretty big scale Mayhem in fact this trailer shows some bigger bayham than in any of the previous movies because this time there's a whole planet thing that's going to attack Earth's Moon could this be the live-action debut of Unicron it doesn't get much bigger than that the trailer also follows up on the loose thread left at the end of age of Extinction where Optimus flew off into space to find his creators although this makes it look like he just immediately froze once he got into space which is really funny but eventually Optimus Prime does make his way back to Earth only not quite the same as he was foreign in a big twist of fate Optimus Prime appears to be turned evil in this latest installment all of this amounted to plenty of excitement and interest for fans of the live-action movies but for non-fans this trailer all but proved that this movie was going to be more of the same in fact non-fans really had nothing to latch onto with this trailer while all of the previous movies had one big thing to get Butts into seats like Devastator or the Dinobots the closest this trailer got was the evil Optimus tease which only really appealed to people who already know the character and the implications that being said this trailer garnered a lot of attention online and it was followed by this teaser poster a few days later clearly Paramount and Hasbro wanted to get as many eyes on this movie as possible and their efforts were succeeding pretty spectacularly so far with the trailer garnering a hundred million views online in a matter of days ultimately plenty of eyes were on the fifth Transformers film and the marketing efforts kept anticipation up as the clock turned to the year marketing kicked off in January with a couple of TV spots for the last night although these didn't contain any new footage just shorter Snippets from the teaser trailer but new footage was unveiled at the Super Bowl where two days before the game a 30-second brand new look was released featuring all new footage expanded looks at what was seen in the teaser more destruction more Carnage and further expansion on what promised to be a massive fight between Optimus and Bumblebee but that 30 second look was only the start as on the day of the Super Bowl an extended spot was released with double the length and double the footage from the upcoming Blockbuster this time featuring a look at the arc from Dark of the Moon as it's torn apart by the Big Planet thing that's coming to destroy the Earth on top of that there was confirmation that the Dinobots would return and of course closing out with the new footage of Optimus vs Bumblebee [Applause] these two spots were joined by a more humorous ad showing off the new baby Dinobots who were said to have fairly significant roles in the upcoming movie and this led into a slightly different approach from marketing going forward while the last few movies remained pretty silent after the Super Bowl until a new trailer came out towards the tail end of April the last night decided to keep anticipation up during the Spring months in the lead-up to the traditional late April trailer starting with a full minute long clip at the Kids Choice Awards in March showing off a scene with a handful of kids running away from a military drone most specifically the clip focuses on Isabella moner's character Izzy who a couple days later became the subject of her own trailer featuring fourth wall breaking interviews where Izzy tells her life story to the backdrop of some bayhem this trailer was a little divisive among fans I mean Not only was it focusing primarily on the human characters instead of the robots but it was focusing on younger audiences I mean appealing to kids that's just a crime punishable by death although even still there wasn't much here for people who weren't already fans of the series for one thing the humor was still pretty bad who is it as far as you're concerned my boyfriend how long is that overall the humor action most of it just screamed more of the same but perhaps the next movie after Transformers 5 would be a breath of fresh air as in March it was confirmed that Travis Knight would direct the Bumblebee movie his previous work was an animation directing Kubo and the two strings and being the CEO of Leica who made Box Trolls ParaNorman and Coraline clearly a very different voice than Michael Bay but perhaps it could be exactly the kick the franchise needed to finally get some more critical praise though bumblebee wasn't going to be the only expansion as shortly after Michael Bay confirmed that 14 stories were written for the future of the franchise 14. I'm gonna be the first to say it that's too much especially for a franchise this critically pant but hey maybe the last night will be a welcome surprise marketing for which continued in the following weeks as eight motion posters for the main robot cast were released bumblebee barricade hot rod Hound squeaks cogman Megatron and of course Optimus Prime that was followed by yet another IMAX 3D featurette showing off the impressive camera technology used to capture a huge portion of the upcoming Blockbuster stating that to get the best experience you would want to see the movie in IMAX 3D and this all led to April 12th where finally a full trailer was released for Transformers 5. Optimus Prime you destroyed your home do you seek Redemption I do across two and a half minutes this trailer shows off even more Mayhem along with further glimpses of Optimus vs Bumblebee as well as positing that human history has been intertwined with the Transformers a lot more than the previous movies have led on and of course beyond the big fight against bumblebee that everyone wants to see this trailer reveals a little bit more of evil Optimus with the release of this trailer the final marketing push towards the last night's release kicked off giving fans tons to chew on in the remaining two months before the film's release and while the movie was certainly the center of the Transformers conversation the TV side of things also made an impression as robots in Disguise was back once again for its actual third season this wasn't just a six episode stint either another 26 episodes were to be released under the new moniker combiner Force as such on April 29th fans returned to TV screens to witness the next set of Adventures of Bumblebee and his team of Autobots [Music] understand ings [Music] the first stretch of robots in Disguise is third season returns to the more episodic nature of the first two seasons once again following this team of Autobots as they track down all new Decepticons on Earth including crustacean rage bite zorilor boost wing jacknab and pilfer despite the return to more repetitive plotting there's still a fair amount of fun to be had with these characters there's an episode where sideswipe gets split into two each personifying a different aspect of his personality much like the Starscream clones from animated another episode sees Strongarm become a Noir detective which is even reflected in the animation in some fun ways the case of the missing explosives I'm on it there's even an episode where drift runs into his treacherous old master shadowraker and to defeat him jetstorm and slipstream prove themselves in a fairly satisfying way another episode sees the team switch bodies with each other in a failed experiment giving each of them a first-hand account of what it's like to be their teammates the show also brings in the character blur which ties it into the now concluded Rescue Bots series which a tied in with this show a couple times before already which is neat but the most fun the season has is with its long running story arc this season ain't called combiner Force for nothing because the show introduces some stunticons to the fold heatseeker drag strip wild break slash mark and their leader motor Master these stunticons have the ability to combine and inadvertently so do the Autobots though they can't quite coordinate their efforts as each member is still conscious when combined meaning they have to work together to do something as simple as walk forward this is a fairly natural extension of what the show has done so far seeing this team learn to work together as one literally in this case but the ultimate conclusion would have to wait until the second half of the Season as the show took a brief Hiatus just in time for the theatrical release of Transformers the last night over the months of May and June an onslaught of TV spots and posters were released in lead up to the fifth movie's release which was pushed forward two days to June 21st Paramount was putting a lot of eggs into this basket as the marketing push for the last night was so big it even eclipsed the already massive campaigns for the previous four movies there were two International trailers appealing to audiences worldwide and there were well over 40 TV spots total before the film's release nearly doubling the number for the previous movies on top of that some other fun ads were released like this series of ads showing the Autobots working on set one of them even proves that Optimus is a raging psychopath outside of the movies too death before dishonor this lesson could be your very last if you threaten my life one more time today I'm in my car and I'm off home at the same time the toy line surrounding the movie began as well with all new gimmicks like night armor additions on Optimus and Bumblebee Transformers The Last Knight dominated the promotional sphere in the month of June and it was bolstered by Michael Bay saying once again that this was his last Transformers movie I mean he said it before but this time it might just be true ultimately it all led to June 21st where after all of the TV spots trailers after the teas of Optimus turning evil and fighting Bumblebee the Transformers Universe was going to expand in a massive way promising to explain why the Transformers keep coming to Earth and how they've impacted human history after 10 years of Transformers dominating the big screen it was time to journey to theaters to watch the fifth and presumably final Michael Bay Transformers movie foreign [Music] magic does exist it was found long ago inside a crashed alien ship evidently the opening narration Duties are going to be taken over by Anthony Hopkins this time around kicking the movie off we see a massive battle where King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table are facing off against the Saxon hordes that's right the Knights of the Round Table we got the whole crew they even brought in Merlin wait is that Stanley Tucci God I'm suzzled one last name that's crazy but he manages to get the attention of a transformer a guardian Knight one of 12 in fact who bestows upon him a magic staff you heard me right Merlin's staff was given to him by a Transformer and with the power of the staff the knights combined to form the three-headed dragon storm and together with Merlin they turned the tide against the Saxons allowing King Arthur and his Knights to win the day now with the backstory established the movie quickly flashes forward to present day where we run into Optimus Frozen in space that's this message is to my creator of the Lord because I'm coming for you [Music] this movie picks up a couple years after age of Extinction the Transformers have been made illegal hunted down by the trf well except in Cuba actually where Simmons makes his return so that's something and Cade Yeager is helping the remaining Autobots stay hidden and Alive all the while a world-ending threat is on its way as the planet Cybertron looking quite a bit smaller than the last time we saw it is approaching Earth preparing to suck it dry of all of its energy which leaves us with one single immensely important question is Michael Bay's last hurray in the Transformers franchise any good well No in fact you could argue that this is the worst of the Transformers movies while it's probably not as bad as age of Extinction nor as offensive as Revenge of the Fallen but it just feels tired it feels like Michael Bay is sleepwalking his way through this one none of the shots really stand out there doesn't seem to be any thoughts put into any of the images it's just a collection of things thrown together I'm reminded of the first movie which in contrast managed to create a sense of awe and wonder at the scale of the Transformers there were moments where the camera movements while still over the top were deliberate and had an aim but this movie everything looks the same it's just a bunch of handheld shots in between wide shots that aren't as impressive as what Michael Bay was doing 10 years ago the editing also does it no favors the cutting is so fast and so jumbled while there's always been issues with spatial geography this editing dials that all the way up to 11. that isn't held by the constantly changing aspect ratio either due to the use of multiple types of cameras the shot eyes grows and shrinks virtually every second the visual effects are also not as spectacular as they were before while there's nothing about them that sticks out as particularly bad they're just not special even the sound design feels incredibly weak gone is the creativity of the first few movies instead this one feels completely stock it's like they accidentally used the temp tracks instead of the actual Final Mix weirdly enough though there are things in the script that can kind of work the piece is to make a functional story are there the problem is the movie just doesn't care I mean take this moment where Cade calls his daughter from the last movie he's unable to see her he can't even talk to her on the phone or else his location will be discovered it kind of gets at some genuine emotion I we only got five seconds left so I'm fine I'm safe and I love and it's all clearly meant to set up a moment where by the end Kate is actually able to talk to his daughter and props to the movie that moment does happen Cade grabs a soldier's cell phone and texts his daughter but it's a seemingly random moment that sandwiched in between the larger action scenes so it doesn't register at all it's a moment that could really land but doesn't because the movie doesn't care the movie doesn't care about the characters either I mean it goes to Great Lengths to introduce Izzy who if you remember got her own trailer but about an hour into the movie She and a bunch of other characters disappear for no less than 45 minutes hot rod is introduced but he's nothing like his G1 counterpart in fact this version of hot rod is actually French is he French no he just likes the accent no no no no I hate Jackson but I can get rid of it I'm stuck with Jackson but the Decepticons really get the short end of the stick here the move movie does reintroduce Megatron and barricade but gives no explanation as to how they got here from the previous appearances there is a scene where Megatron gets an all-new ragtag team of Decepticons though including Mohawk dreadbot Nitro Zeus and Onslaught Berserker was considered But ultimately didn't make the cut this is a fun idea bringing together this crazy new team of Decepticons I wonder where that'll go ah this ain't right oh never mind they're all dead I guess it was a good thing Berserker didn't make the cut he gets to live to fight another day but hey there is the new edition cogman who's kind of fun and Anthony Hopkins is at least having a total blast in this movie he knows exactly the type of movie he's in and he's just going for it are you boys and girls but then again most of his involvement is spouting Exposition for 20 minutes in the middle of the movie tying everything back to the Knights of the Round Table Merlin's staff and explaining how heavily involved the Transformers have been in history hell Bumblebee and hot rod fought Nazis and a Transformer watch killed Hitler it's a clear attempt to broaden the franchise to set the stage for the 14 future movies they want to do but why go backwards why not expand outwards there's so much good stuff in Transformers like other planets races Concepts there's just so much more they can do but I know what you're thinking sure all of this is incredibly disappointing but what about the real star of the show The reason we all paid the price of admission is evil Optimus Prime any good I'm glad you asked here let me set the stage early in the movie Optimus Prime crashes on the ruined Cybertron and meets up with quintessa and her soldier in fernicus she brainwashes him and tells him to destroy the Earth which is apparently Unicron you know that really good plot line from Transformers Prime you know Earth is Unicron yeah this movie does that too but with absolutely zero Fanfare but once he's brainwashed Nemesis Prime Journeys to Earth to fight Bumblebee and unfortunately it's not very good firstly Nemesis Prime here is virtually no different than The Optimist scene in Age of Extinction the only difference is that now he's trying to brutally murder a fellow Autobot but even then he's done that before and this whole fight the ultimate battle between allies the total screen time of them actually fighting amounts to a whopping 90 seconds 60 seconds of which were in the trailers and TV spots the trailers even included this bit of Optimus nearly killing Bumblebee which resolves with uh bumblebee your oldest friend Optimus I would lay down my life for you [Music] okay having the moment where bumblebee gets his voice back be the moment that also cures Optimus is a fine idea it's just not set up properly I mean there is a whole scene where new character day trader shows up earlier and gives Bumblebee a new voice box but it's faulty this is so exciting oh no this isn't my damn voice and then he rips it up so why does it suddenly work now ah it doesn't really matter anymore Optimus is cured and it all leads into the third act where Cybertron has arrived on Earth and Via use of the staff of Merlin quintessa begins sucking Unicron dry and admittedly this third Act is very massive there's a lot of scale going on here with this entire planet sitting next to Earth though it is constantly interrupted by this scientist guy who says probably the funniest line in the whole movie Personally I'm gonna rely on physics and Mathematics to save the planet not mysticism fairs and some hobgoblins which is later followed by the other funniest line in the movie yeah with that hobgoblin stuff that and worked at it I got Hail Mary how about physics also where is Optimus he's good now he was rallying the troops earlier he even blasted off into the sky so where'd he go oh so he's just dead now obviously Optimus isn't dead it's just the latest most thinly veiled attempt to get the moment where he swoops in at the last second to heroic music like in all of the previous movies and of course that exact thing happens he swoops in with dragon storm and takes down infernicus and I'll admit it's still pretty cool to see Optimus Prime do some cool things foreign all leads to the final battle where the Autobots face off against quintessa bumblebee manages to defeat her and the staff is separated stopping Cybertron from draining the Earth as such Our Heroes Escape just as the structure collapses onto the ground and the conflict is resolved and now it's time for a nice long conclusive resolution to this whole thing I am Optimus Prime calling all Autobots it is time to come home [Music] oh never mind the movie's over now although there is an end credit scene where it turns out quintessa is alive and still wants to kill Unicron setting the stage for the next 14 Transformers movies over the next decade I'm tired boss I really am and this was a sentiment held by plenty of people coming out of the last night as once again it was a critical disaster critics hated the movie the same as they did the previous ones the only difference this time around fans weren't big on it either even the most die-hard fans of Michael Bay's approach were left disappointed by this one and this was reflected in the box office where age of Extinction made a whopping a hundred million in its opening weekend back in 2014 the last night made 44 million in its first weekend a steep drop to be sure but it was only the beginning where age of Extinction made 240 million domestically Transformers 5 made 130 million and also fell short of age of extinction's billion dollars worldwide to take home 605 million dollars nearly a 50 percent drop now for us regular people that's a lot of money like an absurd amount of money but for a 200 million dollar Enterprise like this those numbers were horrifying all ultimately it seemed mileage had finally worn out with General audiences they were sick of Michael Bay's take on the Transformers and we're done checking out the latest entry with the misplaced hope that it would be better than the last and as a result of this movie the Transformers franchise was almost universally considered to be Hollywood at its worst it's really unfortunate considering that there is so much that can be done with this franchise there's just so much untapped potential on the big screen ultimately however while Michael Bay often goes out with a bang this latest entry went out with more of a whimper but that wasn't to say the movies wouldn't continue as the Bumblebee movie was still underway with Haley Steinfeld cast as the main lead this was followed by the addition of George lindeborg Jr as well as several other teenager young adult actors feeding into the idea that this was more of a John hughes-esque movie then later John Cena was confirmed to join the cast which also came with the announcement that the release date of the movie was pushed back from June 2018 to December 2 21st while probably a response to the last night's disappointing box office it did seem a weird weekend to choose to put the next movie one would think that Paramount would want less competition for the Bumblebee movie so putting it on the same weekend as DC's Aquaman was a strange choice to be sure but the movie was going to boast a much smaller budget at 70 million dollars far less than the last night's whopping 217 million dollars so the movie doesn't need as much money to break even so maybe they know what they're doing in any case with the casting news of foot and production beginning in the state of California the Bumblebee movie was underway with confirmation that it was set in the year 1987. perhaps this could be the good Transformers movie that fans have been waiting for in the meantime however as the last night's box office dwindled swiftly over the course of the summer fans could return to TV screens for the remainder of robots in disguises third season though it was confirmed that this season of robots in Disguise would be the show's last as Hasbro announced in another show titled cyberverse to debut in the fall of 2018. once again another show ends after three seasons oh well there are still another 16 episodes to go kicking off with an episode where strong arm runs into her old friend Nitra who's now a bounty hunter looking for The Fugitive blast wave but then in a clever twist it turns out the opposite is true blastwave is looking for The Fugitive Nitra it puts strong arm to the test in an interesting way because she's been lied to by her longtime friend and while the twist is fairly predictable for older audiences I'm sure kids were floored as the season continued it largely ditched the monster the weak premise of the earlier seasons in fact there were only two new Decepticons across the remainder of the Season flame snort and Wing code the other episodes focus on the Autobots taking down the stunticons which gets tricky once it's revealed that the stunticons can combine to form menasor as a result the autobot team finally puts aside all of their different is to work together as one combining into Ultra B to ultimately defeat menasor once and for all it's pretty satisfying to see this team come together like this and it even brings back the iconic Autobot rallying cry it appears you have truly brought your team together bumblebee till all are one till all are one but even with menasor gone and Optimus taking drift into space for another mission the season isn't over yet in fact there are 10 episodes left and they bring the heat immediately the autobot base the scrap yard they've spent the entire Series in is destroyed by returning Decepticons thunderhoof clamp down quill strike underbite and their leader steel jaw who Apparently after being taken to Cybertron and stasis pawns at the end of season 2 were broken free by someone on Cybertron with the promise of full pardons if the Autobots could be defeated leading them all back to Earth and of course steeljaw Wants Revenge for his embarrassing defeat back on Decepticon Island this return manages to bring the show Full Circle in a way as we now see the original team of Autobots facing off against the season 1 Decepticons although the Autobots do get a new addition once bulkhead joins The Fray all right bulkhead let's go always love that big green guy but the season one Decepticons aren't the main villains of the season in fact all of them except steel jaw are captured by the Autobots plenty of episodes before the end of the season so who is the main villain well throughout the season a handful of mini cons have been popping up occasionally these minicons include stuntwing trick out High test and gold gear and they're serving a mysterious master who was eventually revealed to be sound wave back from the Shadow Zone in an all-new G1 inspired body he even talks now which I don't know how I feel about that part of what I really liked about this character in Prime was that he was dead silent in fact across the entire show he only have said four words but he made those words count some wave Superior Autobots inferior but he's still pretty menacing here perfect for the final season's big bad well not really because he's defeated and taken into custody by Optimus Prime to face trial so I ask again who is the main villain this mystery was exacerbated further with the arrival of detective drop Forge strong arms old teacher who was sent to Earth to arrest Bumblebee and his team for their crimes you heard me right the B team are considered criminals though as it turns out drop Forge was being brainwashed by outside forces forces from Cybertron which finally reveals the mysterious villain or rather villains they are the benefactors of Steel jaw and his team the ones who saw to their escape they also reprogrammed the minicons to freeze sound wave they are the new High Council of Cybertron tying all the way back to what ratchet said at the end of season 2. as it turns out after the restoration of Cybertron and the death of Optimus after Transformers Prime this High Council immediately came into power and slowly used their influence to their own agenda marking all of the autobot Heroes as criminals and brainwashing the entire population of Cybertron to agreeing to a complete invasion of Earth it's a fairly mature turn for the series a more politically motivated turn that appeals far more to the older audiences of the show but kids still have plenty of action to enjoy this discovery results in the return of Optimus Prime as well as ratchet wind blade drift and Jazz who joined Bumblebee and his team in order to face off against the High Council in a two-front grand finale to end the series on one side Optimus Prime ratchet bulkhead windblade and Jazz remain on Earth to fend off an impending cybertronian Invasion while on the other side bumblebee Grimlock sideswipe Strongarm drift and these minicons jetstorm and slipstream with Fix It Journey to Cybertron to stop the High Council and reveal their treachery the Cybertron team is even joined by Steel jaw in a fairly surprising twist even he doesn't want the High Council to destroy the Earth with their Invasion together they Journey to the high council chambers and reveal that the council members aren't even Autobots their Decepticons led by cyclonus ah that explains everything Decepticons took over Cybertron brainwashed everyone and their schemes would result in complete domination of Earth and Cybertron and they might even succeed as the five members of the council combine to form galvatronus but they underestimate the B team who combine to form Ultra B leading to a pretty big fight between the two combiners until eventually cyber warp one of the council members decides to retaliate against the others believing that it is unnecessary to destroy the Earth because of that the Autobots get the advantage over Galvatron bonus and free the entirety of Cybertron from the brainwashing while at the same time Optimus and his team fend off The Invasion leading to Ultimate victory for the autobots and with cyber warps turned to good perhaps there is hope for long-lasting peace between Autobots and Decepticons as such Cybertron is restored the Autobots are seen as the heroes they are Optimus appoints ratchet bulkhead windblade and Jazz as the new temporary High Council until another council is democratically elected bumblebees strong arm sideswipe Grimlock drift jetstorm slipstream and fix it return to Earth to protect the planet as robots in Disguise alongside Denny and Russell and right on cue steel jaw runs loose on earth once again leading the Autobots to chase him down as they ride off into the sunset thank you [Music] and that is the end of robots in Disguise while certainly not the most groundbreaking show it had its moments there were fun characters fun ideas plenty of brand new Decepticons some prime cameos to keep older fans happy and while none of the serialized elements lasted longer than two or three episodes they were welcome additions in this otherwise all right TV series it certainly wasn't the sequel to Prime that some fans were hoping for but it proved to be a worthy addition to Transformers that tried to take things in a New Direction and gave kids an all-new group of Heroes to look up to but I guess after three seasons or three and a half Seasons technically it was time for yet another Transformer show to kick the bucket to make room for the next one in the meantime the Bumblebee film wrapped principal photography with the reveal of the logo and Bumblebee's slightly modified head at the same time Titans returned the second in the prime Wars Trilogy following up on combiner Wars was also released during November and December of 2017 and once again and it wasn't well like my fans for pretty much the same reasons they didn't like combiner Wars but just before the year ended a light appeared at the end of the tunnel as this image was revealed of the upcoming bumblebee movie the first official look at the small scale movie confirmed that for the first time since the 80s bumblebee would be a Volkswagen Beetle if there was ever a sign that this movie was going in a different direction it was this choice I mean one of the things Michael Bay was adamant against doing was making Bumblebee a beetle in the first movie perhaps giving him his classic alternate mode was a sign a sign that this could be the movie fans were hoping for while potentially a long shot this Choice gave fans far more hope in the franchise's live-action future than they'd had in a long time 2018 got off to a slow start with the conclusion of robots in Disguise and the release of The Last Knight firmly in the rear view mirror there wasn't much new stuff to grasp onto in the early months of the year in fact some of the only news was that the movie franchise was going to get a bit smaller while there had been a Transformer 6 slated for summer 2019 for a couple years that release was pulled from Hasbro's upcoming slate and by extension one can infer that the rest of the 14 movies were also shelved given the last night's disappointing box office signs were pointing to a reset or reboot of the franchise after the Bumblebee movie as well as hints that Hasbro would have more creative input in the live-action future taking the reins a little bit more after the consistently critical failures of the previous live-action entries eventually despite the slow start to the year news did start flowing from the Bumblebee movie starting with cinemacon in April where director Travis Knight revealed a little bit of footage to the convention while none of this footage became public a few descriptions made their way online giving fans an idea of what was seen making the movie sound much smaller in scope and much more in line with 80s family adventure movies which made sense considering the time period this movie was set in at the same time the third of machinima's prime Wars Trilogy was released titled power of the primes and it was once again not well received by fans but hey it's got Optimus primal played by Ron Perlman so there's that but if you weren't interested in machinima's take on Transformers then you were in luck because the marketing push towards the Bumblebee movie finally kicked off starting on June 5th not only releasing this teaser poster which is nice and simple but following that up with the first teaser trailer [Music] let me tell you something I drive it on the picnic car pick to drive some mystical bomb between man and machine so listen to Mom between man and machine ah come on dude using the Bobby Bolivia speech from the first movie is cheating but damn does it work across two and a half minutes this trailer shows off a far smaller more intimate feel for Transformers as new character Charlie Watson meets Autobot Bumblebee and they go off on an adventure there are threats like agent burns with sector 7 and a Decepticon that whoa that looks scarily like Starscream did is it Starscream could be a real good choice a villain if that's what they're going for in any case the transformation sequence looks really cool ultimately the trailer while it wasn't the most spectacular thing in the world it managed to give Transformers fans hope for the first time in a while when it came to the big screen I mean with each movie since Revenge of the Fallen there was hope that it would be better than the last but each time it felt misplaced but this time this g1-esque story with a much lighter tone and small smaller cast this really could be it perhaps it's too early to tell but all signs were pointing up which hadn't happened in a long time the promotion for bumblebee continued into the summer with an Entertainment Weekly exclusive revealing two all-new Decepticons shatter and dropkick voiced by Angela Bassett and Justin Thoreau respectively they were also revealed with the promise that they'd be delved into a lot more than the Decepticons of the past movies which was yet another bonus for fans this was followed up by a first for the live-action movies as the Bumblebee movies cast and director made an appearance at Comic-Con for their very own panel where they talked about the movie sold their new approach to the material and revealed some new details firstly this Decepticon in the trailer it ain't Starscream it's actually blitzwing which I mean honestly he looks a lot more like Starscream but hey if they say it's blitzwing then it's blitzwing at the same time it was confirmed that the movie would visit Cybertron at a certain point and in a surprise for fans Peter Cullen made an appear during the fan question segment to ask an important question of his own what does an Autobot have to do to get his own movie the Bumblebee movie's Presence at Comic-Con was yet another difference in approach compared to the Michael Bay movies while the fact that this movie was releasing in December helped time promotion with Comic-Con it seemed that the Michael Bay team had no interest in visiting Comic-Con at all whereas the Bumblebee team was more than happy to promote the movie at the biggest nerd Gathering of them all as the summer continued and fans waited patiently for more news regarding the Bumblebee movie a major Milestone was reached in the Transformers Comics World as idw's long-running G1 inspired comic books were coming to an end with a massive story revolving around Unicron I mean IDW would still print new Transformers Comics after this run was finished but it marked the end of the single longest running Transformers continuity ever lasting 13 years these Comics contained some of the most revered Transformer stories ever they were so acclaimed by fans that they consistently said every time a new movie was announced that the filmmakers should look to idw's comics for story inspiration and cool ideas as the weeks continued into the fall the promotion for the Bumblebee movie continued with the release of an all-new poster and confirmation that David sabalov the voice of depth charge and Beast Wars and Shockwave in Transformers Prime would voice blitzwing in the upcoming movie but the final marketing push really kicked off on September 24th with the release of an all-new trailer across two and a half minutes this trailer shows off more of the heart and humor on display in this new approach as well as hinting at more of the story the movie was going to tell as Charlie Watson and Bumblebee are hiding out from sector 7 and the newly introduced Decepticons on top of that the trailer showed off some action promising that even with this new approach Transformers could still blow stuff up like the best of them but perhaps most exciting to fans was a glimpse at Cybertron featuring looks at heavily G1 inspired characters like Shockwave sound wave ravage and of course Optimus Prime and it looks amazing I mean Cybertron is perhaps the most interesting place in the franchise and seeing it brought to life in the spirit of G1 even in these tiny glimpses is so cool I mean the Decepticons turn into those triangle-shaped Jets from the very first episode of the cartoon this trailer was also joined by an international trailer on the same day which while it is largely the same trailer it does feature some more footage of Cybertron as well as some more of the heart and humor only person you can throw yourself around is me so let's say we're driving and opposite somebody surprised you serious overall these two trailers managed to turn a feeling of Hope into a feeling of excitement while there was plenty of doubt that a good Transformers movie could be made plenty of it washed away after this and fans were counting the days until the December release but December is still a ways away so fans needed something to bide their time in comes the perfectly timed start to the next television Adventure Transformers cyberverse for the first time since 2010 Transformers began an all-new continuity as this series was completely disconnected from Prime robots in Disguise Rescue Bots or the newly started Rescue Bots Academy cyberverse was set to debut on Cartoon Network but also each episode would be uploaded straight to the Transformers YouTube channel to be easily accessible to all fans as such on September 1st fans returned to TV screens or opened up YouTube to witness the latest take on the Autobots and Decepticons [Music] [Applause] thank you [Applause] utilizing Hasbro's new Evergreen designs for the Transformers which are just modernized versions of the G1 Incarnation cyber vs first season starts to franchise Anew following bumblebee on Earth who's lost his memories and has no idea why he's here or any of the history of Cybertron as such the other lead character windblade uses her city-speaking abilities which is really just telepathy to travel into Bumblebee's mind so together they can recover his memories both to find the location of the other Autobots crashed somewhere on Earth but also to locate the life-giving allspark as such each 10 minute episode centers on the two of them looking into a different memory to retrace their steps leading up to them both arriving on Earth and as a bonus as Bumblebee's memories start being restored he summarizes the Transformers in a pretty succinct way we are from a planet made of metal and everyone's been fighting for millions of years and we've ruined our home because we don't like each other oh and there's this thing called the allspark that created all of us because I don't know why but we lost it all the while they're being chased down by a handful of Decepticon Seekers including slipstream Thundercracker Nova storm Acid Storm and thrust giving the show some light stakes to fuel the simple fun kid-friendly Adventure that's relatively easy to get into for adults considering the bite-sized episodes but don't let the small rapper fool you because this show has the most fun of any Transformer show since animated ended back in 2009 in fact thanks to its flashbacks it actually features one of the largest casts for a Transformer show including the Autobots Optimus Prime Grimlock perceptor ratchet RC chromia wheel Jack prowl and rack and ruin to start along with the Decepticons Megatron starscreams sound waves Shockwave dirge Ramjet and Deadlock who actually left the Decepticons to join join the autobots and renamed himself drift on top of that the show explores the past of Cybertron before the war more than any other show I mean there are pre-war scenes where Autobots and Decepticons are hanging out side by side because there's nothing that's divided them yet it's fun [Music] the show even introduces a cybertronian sport called Cube making the world feel more lived in by giving the Transformers some entertainment of their own there's also the introduction of Macadam owner of an old oil house and he's a fun character rumored in the show to be one of the original 13 primes as well as having the unique ability to seemingly perceive all of space and time at once giving some of the main characters some tips that make no sense in the moment but make a whole lot of sense in the present day storyline but perhaps the most interesting thing about these flashbacks is the look into how Megatron Rose to political prominence promising to better Cybertron under the new Decepticon ideology with Optimus at his side that is until Optimus and Megatron's ideologies finally Clash leading to The Divide between Autobots and Decepticons and eventually another flashback sees Optimus become Optimus Prime by taking on The Matrix from a dying Alpha Trion there's quite a bit in here for such an unassuming show there's even an expansion to other planets as one flashback sees bumblebee visiting velocitron with hot rod and blur as they race around the crazy tracks across the planet that is until Cosmic rust puts an end to their vacation and in fact destroys the entire planet in mere minutes which also results in the pretty horrifying death of blur which is definitely unexpected for a show like this bumblebees even established to have an arch nemesis in the form of Shadow Striker who was blown to bits by bumblebee during the war and after being rebuilt from spare parts now hunts down bumblebee for Revenge as much as the tone and sensibilities of the show are definitely on the Lighter Side the actual meat and potatoes are kinda dark at least relative to the target audience but all of these flashbacks eventually lead to the discovery of the Autobots location on Earth locked in stasis inside their ship the ark as such in the final stretch to reach the arc Bumblebee and windblade encounter teletran x a portable version of teletran 1 ejected before the arc crashed and Grimlock who was also ejected before the arc crashed Grimlock actually landed on Earth in prehistoric times becoming friends with dinosaurs and taking on a T-Rex form alongside them now these four Autobots come together to form a fun and unlikely new team a team that finally locates the crashed Arc and awakens the other automots all in the nick of time as Shockwave has arrived with an army of Decepticons leaving Optimus to sign off the season with his most iconic catchphrase I will kill you wait no no that's not it hold on okay here I got it let's let's run it back Autobots roll out while certainly a little bit of a cliffhanger it rounded out the season in a fun way now season two can tell stories set entirely in the present day as the United Autobots fend off the Decepticons on Earth you know what most Transformers stories do it's just this one decided to take the long way there but it worked out showing off some fun new ideas and new characters for fans to enjoy but with the first season of cyberverse having concluded in December of 2018 there was nothing left keeping fans from the release of the Bumblebee movie with new posters TV spots and even a featurette talking about the G1 inspired designs the marketing Blitz kept fan anticipation high there were even some early reviews which in stark contrast to the reviews for the previous movies these ones were positive it's not just a great Transformers movie wow it's a great movie period oh man I hope that's true now finally after five Michael Bay movies some of the most divisive if not downright hated aspects of the franchise fans could finally see the Transformers movie they'd been waiting for as all led to December 21st 2018 where audiences went out and droves to see Aquaman yeah that movie had a lot more press and media attention surrounding it but bumblebee was playing down the hall and some people went to see that too I'm sure of it and for the people that did it was finally time to strap in for an all-new big screen take on the Transformers foreign okay pause pause for one second hold on I just got a G1 transformers overload all right let me let me cover that again so in the first 10 seconds of this movie we get appearances from ratchet RC cliff jumper wheel Jack iron hides in the background and Brawn they brought Brawn in here the guy who hasn't had any major appearance since the original cartoon in the 80s they brought him back this is the greatest movie I've ever seen but that's not all we got Decepticons too like sound waves Starscream and Shockwave and of course there's the leader of the Autobots Optimus Prime alongside him the Title Character bumblebee or b127 actually because he doesn't actually have a name just a designation he does talk though so I might hit a little traffic but this whole three-minute Cybertron prologue is meant to set up b127 going off on his own mission to Earth to set up a base for the Autobots as the rest of them try to gather the other forces scattered across the Galaxy as such Optimus sends B off into space to a mission that will Define him for years to come [Music] foreign [Music] but the excitement doesn't stop there as shortly after B arrives on Earth he comes face to face with blitzwing also a really cool scene I mean the choreography the action it's clear and concise and it looks really cool it also has some serious Stakes as blitzwing tears out B's voice box but he gets some Karma as B stabs a missile into his chest and shoots it making it go but it's badly damaged bees memory cells deteriorate and he collapses taking on the form of a VW Beetle presumably heading into stasis and all of that happens in the first 10 minutes of the movie those 10 minutes did not have to go that hard but I'm really glad they did that was awesome from here the movie follows Charlie Watson who's just turned 18 and finds b as a broken down VW Beetle in a junkyard she manages to reawaken him and the two of them form an unshakable Bond hell she even gives him his name you sound like a humblebee [Music] I'm gonna call you that from now on [Music] Bumblebee and eventually the two were joined by memo to have tons of fun adventures over the course of the next two hours and fun is a perfect word to describe this movie there's not much to it it's light it's Breezy it's good for kids and it's got a lot of heart there's plenty for adults to enjoy as well like the Relentless 80s soundtrack I made this soundtrack Rivals the Relentless soundtrack for the Transformers movie that actually came out in the 80s I mean we got the Smiths Bon Jovi Duran Duran Steve Winwood Simple Minds Tears for Fears bumblebee even gets Rick Rolled at one point Never Gonna Give You Up and of course there's a tiny bit of Stan bush [Music] [Applause] there's tons of fun little sequences in here as well like Charlie memo and Bumblebee trying to get back at the bully character by egging her car and then bumblebee gets a little too carried away and just destroys the thing there's even a fun Chase sequence where bumblebee shows off some creative use of partial transformation which is neat but the heroes aren't the only characters we have here as two Decepticons have found their way to Earth although only after they brutally murder cliff jumper so rest in peace that guy but these two are called shatter and dropkick who can turn humans into snot whenever they damn well please and they team up with agent Burns in sector 7 to track down bumblebee there's even a couple messages that come through the pipe from Optimus Prime which also comes with a little bit more Cybertron where Soundwave gets to show off his iconic voice while summoning ravage the performances here are also pretty good I mean Haley Steinfeld brings a lot of emotional weight to the role and it's good that the movie takes its time with this character and allows her to be a fully fleshed out person John Cena's also having a lot of fun here getting to both play The Macho Soldier as well as have some comedic moments like when he gets the best line of the movie they literally call themselves Decepticons that doesn't set off any red flags there's just a lot of fun to be had with this light on its feet moving but is it perfect well I mean as much as I really enjoy the Cybertron stuff it does kind of feel like it comes from a different movie a really cool movie but a different movie that and the movie loses a bit of momentum during the middle and that's probably due to the fact that bumblebee has Amnesia I feel like that aspect could be removed and you might have more of an external goal for Bumblebee and Charlie I think he's already got enough of a handicap with the loss of his voice but maybe that's just me but eventually the movie does gain some momentum as sector 7 in the Decepticons end up capturing Bumblebee and during the Decepticons interrogation a message from Optimus Prime plays revealing the Autobots plan to settle on Earth you must protect the planet if the Decepticons find it then our people are truly finished stay safe Soldier I am coming but it also leads to the reveal of the decepticon's true intentions to call their own Army to Earth to eradicate the autobots and the humans alike which causes sector 7 to turn on the Decepticons and with their help Bumblebee and Charlie rush off to stop the Decepticons from phoning home and bumblebees fight against them is really fun I mean it's got the same knack for choreography and Clarity that the opening with blitzwing did there's also a little reference to this moment from the opening of season one of the cartoon which is fun [Applause] and the death of both of the Decepticons is pretty gnarly I mean bumblebee ends up getting chains stuck through dropkick's body then pulls him apart until he goes I mean that's pretty violent for this movie at least shatter's death is a little more PG by that I mean she gets crushed by a boat and explodes but with the death of both Decepticons Charlie is able to cut off their Communications keeping Earth's location a secret and with agent Burns help both Charlie and Bumblebee are able to drive off into the sunset or Sunrise I guess and this leads to the conclusion of the movie where Charlie and Bumblebee must go their separate ways while it isn't made Crystal Clear exactly why they have to go their separate ways the scene is still very heartfelt and hits the right emotional buttons thank you thank you so much for giving me my voice thank you when you feel like me again and with that bumblebee takes on the form of a 1976 Camaro and drives along the Golden Gate Bridge with a flat nose G1 Optimus Prime now that's cool meanwhile Charlie and memo reunite having gone through a transformative Journey will they get together who knows but that's the end of the movie although there is a quick post-credits scene with Optimus and Bumblebee we gotta see that before we get out of here old friend you kept this planet safe because of you we have a future b127 my name is Bumblebee [Music] wait so the Autobots are gonna show up in 1987 that's 20 years early does this mean that this movie is a reboot that is the million dollar question isn't it following the release of the movie plenty of information came out regarding its production most notably how several key aspects of the movie were changed a mere six or seven months prior to release originally the movie opened with bumblebee already on Earth with sector 7 already hunting him down on top of that agent Burns had a lost relative who died after a Transformer encounter making him a far more serious character who was seeking Revenge the movie did still end with Optimus and Bumblebee on the bridge but it actually wasn't meant to be the real Optimus just a truck that looked a lot like him and the final kicker was the movie originally capped off with the reveal that sector 7 had Megatron Frozen in the Hoover Dam all of this was in place to firmly connect the movie to the Michael Bay entries before keeping continuity with the long intertwined history the last night in particular set up so the question is why did it all change well the last night didn't do as well as they wanted it to so the studio decided to give the filmmakers a little bit of lenience with continuity as such a very G1 inspired Cybertron was added to the start of the movie agent Burns was given a lot more comedic moments and the Optimus truck was made to actually be Optimus Prime who along with the other Autobots arrived on Earth 20 years early it explains why the Cybertron sequences feel so disconnected as well as why the main Decepticons shatter and drop kick look a lot more like Bay styled Bots while the Decepticons on Cybertron are near one-to-one replicas of their G1 counterparts that being said these relatively last minute additions were perhaps the most well-received aspects of the film I mean did you see that Cybertron scene they should like do an entire movie like that or something but it wasn't just fans who responded well critics like this one too there were tons of positive reviews I guess all it took was getting a different guy to make the movie and even though though it released a stiff competition the movie managed to be a small success at the box office with 127 million dollars domestically and 467 million dollars worldwide while the lowest grossing of the franchise it wasn't as big of a deal due to the smaller budget but fans were once again excited for the future of Transformers on the big screen would there be a bumblebee too would there be an Optimus movie perhaps it would be a while before those questions were answered but plenty of fans were satisfied with the love letter of a movie they got I mean they brought Braun back Bronze in this movie I can't believe that they got him in there that's crazy as 2019 kicked off and early reactions to Bumblebee died down fans began treating it as a reboot of the live-action franchise the fact that it tore away from the other movies in some big ways was enough to make the Declaration despite fans and critics positive response to bumblebee though the film series future would be in flux for the time being even though bumblebee was solidly profitable it still wasn't a runaway success as such the people behind the scenes probably did some reevaluating to see where they would go from here in the meantime the Bumblebee movie was released on DVD and Blu-ray which was revealed by a very fun 80s style home video trailer that came complete with subpar music and over-the-top narration which is fun now on VHS but for the most part without constant news and updates regarding the future of the movies all news regarding the franchise was centered on the TV Enterprises it was announced that Rooster Teeth would develop a war for Cybertron series for Netflix and of course Transformers cyberverse would start its second season in the fall of 2019. marketing for the show's second season saw the far grander scope than what was seen in season one gone was the dive into Bumblebee's memories instead the show would tackle present-day stories as the Autobots and Decepticons battled that out on Earth along with some new interesting surprises like the inclusion of cheetor bringing in some Beast Wars elements as well as the idea that Starscream would become The Season's ultimate villain which would unite the Autobots and Decepticons in a battle against a common foe all in all fans of the first season were in for a treat with season two and all led to September 7th where once again on Cartoon Network and the Transformers YouTube channel fans could head out and witness the continuing cyberverse Adventures [Music] [Applause] taking place an unspecified amount of time after season 1 season 2 UPS the ante not just becoming more of an ensemble show but introducing a handful of new Decepticons with bludgeon lockdown and clobber this season firmly establishes that Humanity knows about the Transformers and because the show has no human characters it decides to show Humanity's thoughts on the Transformers in a more interesting way that's number three on this week's top robot fails robot film number two this one likes to dance too bad he doesn't know how [Music] this guy's not fooling anybody that's not a car [Applause] that's this week's number one robot fail but where the season has the most fun is with Starscream who after being abused by Megatron for eons he finally snaps attacking Megatron while he's down laying into him without remorse which is really kind of cathartic although despite starscream's sudden takeover Megatron still functions and beats the scrap out of him right back Lord Megatron I'm so happy you're still alive Megatron scraps him so hard it seems like Star screams out for good and for whatever reason the Decepticons end up doing a twitch live stream of starscream's Memorial which even has its own live chat with messages like so sad sad face R.I.P Starscream Starscream gate and my personal favorite whose store scream clearly the minds of the generation but this season like the First Once Again revolves around the search for the allspark and this time around the Autobots and Decepticons actually find it guarded by the one and only Chi tour who gives Optimus and Megatron a challenge in order to obtain it no not a challenge by combat a challenge by trivia before you met Megatron he was a celebrated Gladiator in his most famous Victory who did he defeat I I am not certain why are you asking how can you not know this but ultimately it is Starscream who steals the all-spark becoming the de facto villain for the season leading to the Autobots and Decepticons trying and failing to work together to stop him it just seems even though the solution is obvious they just can't get over their differences this is exemplified with the introduction of Jetfire and skybite who have been in an eons long battle ultimately both sides do locate the all-spark but they're unmatched as Starscream uses its power to essentially become God you heard me right Starscream becomes all Mighty until Optimus in a big climactic moment uses the Matrix and neutralizes Starscream once and for all while a little quick the Autobots escape with the all-spark in hand leading them to blast off in the arc back to Cybertron although due to some space Bridge trickery by the Decepticons they have to take the long way home but they have the all-spark which is cause enough to parte well everyone parties except Optimus which kind of provides commentary on how the character is often portrayed as the mission focused Commander but this proves that despite that Optimus can loosen up from time to time which is nice [Music] [Applause] [Music] another episode sees the Autobots encounter three separate factions of sharkticons who are constantly battling over land which chitor tries to convince them to share peacefully you must not fight one another you are one people you even look you should join together in peace and we don't look alike what are you colorblind there's another adventure where the Autobots find themselves on a planet that looks a lot like nessus from Destiny 2 and all leads to the season finale which aired in January of which this season finale has probably the craziest most fun adventure of the entire show as the Autobots try to space bridge to Cybertron they inadvertently get stuck in unspace the space between spaces where they also come across another version of The Ark with another identical Autobot crew who seemed to be a complete mirror of the crew we've been following following their exact movements to the most inane detail and it's fantastic we gotta meet up and we gotta stop talking at the same time okay all righty but that's not all as a legion of other arcs show up there are so many Optimus Primes like look at the credits it goes all the way up to nine but together the collective arcs use each of their all Sparks to open a space Bridge portal out of unspaced back to their respective universes and it works each ship returns to their own Universe the main cast included as they finally arrive at Cybertron although unbeknownst to the Autobots the Decepticons are down on the planet's surface just waiting to destroy them once and for all next season that's right season two ends on a bit of a cliffhanger but damn if that multiversal unspaced episode wasn't a ton of fun even with the bite-sized 10 minute episode cyber versus some of the snappiest and most fun Transformer stories out there and season 2 only improves upon what season one did and thankfully for fans of the show while season 2 released almost nine months after season one ended season three was right around the corner only two short months away though the third season was to be rebranded Ended as Transformers Bumblebee cyberverse Adventures which doesn't roll off the tongue quite as well but the trailer for the season promised that it would see the Autobots and Decepticons battle for the restoration of Cybertron which considering that was one of Prime's best story lines I am in in the meantime however marketing kicked off for Netflix's war for Cybertron series or really Trilogy of shows the first one called Siege and the response to it was kind of mixed I mean on one side there were fans who were excited to see a Cybertron only story but on the other there seemed to be plenty of similarities to machinima's Prime Wars Trilogy which was not well received time would have to tell if Rooster Teeth and Netflix could improve on this new Trilogy of shows but until then the fun exciting cyberverse series returned to Cartoon Network and YouTube on March 15th with a four-part Premiere titled the battle for Cybertron it was time to see just how much more fun craziness cyberverse could have with the autobots and decepticon ends [Music] [Applause] the first four episodes of the show's third season go absolutely ham I mean they showcase this massive battle between Autobots and Decepticons featuring pretty much all of the characters we've seen so far as well as some new additions like autobot's cup and whirl as well as decepticon's Alpha strike dead end and skywarp all fighting for control of The Well of the allspark if the Autobots get the all-spark there first they can restore Cybertron but if the Decepticons get their hands on the all-spark they'll use its power combined with Vector Sigma to create an army of Decepticons to conquer the known universe it's big stuff and it even dips the show's toes into some darker subject matter and by darker I really mean death I mean prowl takes a shot for Optimus a shot that proves fatal and drift the Decepticon turned Autobot actually turns out to have been a Decepticon spy this entire time and fights off against hot rod which results in both of them falling into toxic Energon dying in the process on top of that wheel Jack Traps Vector Sigma and bludgeon in unspace dooming both to be erased from existence entirely and in a final showdown with shockwave cheetor sacrifices himself to save the all-spark and restore Cybertron to an all-new Golden Age which also results in the death of Shockwave it's a massive climactic Showdown that also sees Megatron nearly eaten alive by a legion of scraplets it's a satisfying if not quick four-part Premiere oh that's just the premiere oh okay I guess we got 22 more episodes to go so the question remains with Cybertron restored and plenty of the lead Decepticons dead or dying what's the rest of the season going to be about well the next chunk of the Season turns into the Matrix not that Matrix actually this Matrix you see after the restoration of Cybertron hot rod managed to emerge from the toxic Energon pool with an all-new black paint job but when he returned to the surface he found a very different Cybertron Cybertron ruled by quintessons or quintessence as the show calls them these quintessons have the entirety of the Autobots and Decepticons locked in a looped simulation draining each of their Sparks for their ultimate goal as it turns out these quintessons are actually from the Multiverse and they Traverse different universes judging if they're deserving of existence if they find a universe is not deserving they wipe it out and move on to the next one one of the quintessons even collects all of the different versions of sound wave across the Multiverse which is kinda nuts as such a ragtag team of Autobots and Decepticons including hot rod clobber dead end perceptor and eventually whirl and sound wave must team up to free their fellow Autobots and Decepticons and rid Cybertron of the quintessons all from the only safe place on the entire planet Mac Adams old oil house and my God if this isn't some of the best Transformers TV I ever did see I mean it's such a stark contrast to the light and Fun Stuff the show started at it's by far one of the most interesting takes on the quintessons these multiversal Travelers and the idea of getting the Autobots and Decepticons to work together to face off against them is just awesome there's even a giant crocodile bot named skull cruncher does it get better than that it's high stakes it's dark it's crazy and yet still has that fun charm the show's always had up to this point and it only gets crazier from here as Starscream shows up to wreak some Havoc there's a giant Titan battle and It All Leads to the eventual rise of the Autobots and Decepticons and ultimate defeat of the quintessons now with the planet back under their control the Autobots and Decepticons split their control of it in half the Autobots control one half the Decepticons control the other leading into the final stretch of episodes which see the Autobots and Decepticons visit different aspects of Cybertron as well as other worlds introducing new characters like the insecticons Astro train reality TV show host meteor fire and his partner Cosmos there's a Crystal City where Thunder howl is found a western episode centers on Autobot turned Gunslinger Wild Wheel a trip to the Argon sea introduces the sharkbot hammer bite the show even introduces an underground fascistic organization led by these so-called Energon Masters who dislike the outsider bugs until Grimlock and Bumblebee reveal that they're all the same species and break the barriers between the two civilizations allowing them to co-exist it's unfortunate that these last few episodes have to come off the back of the pretty awesome quintesson story because while fun they just feel a little inconsequential in comparison but all leads to the finale where the Autobots and Decepticons team up to face off against Megatron no not the Megatron we've seen through the rest of the show another universe's Megatron a Megatron who managed to kill his Optimus Prime and steal the Matrix Megatron X Megatron X is pretty frightening as highlighted in the moment where he kills the regular Megatron oh man how are the Autobots gonna take this guy out well it all leads to the moment where Optimus Prime and windblade combined their efforts and defeat him ah that seemed kind of easy within 10 minutes of being introduced the guy's gone huh in any case Megatron X is defeated and the Autobots celebrate their Victory as the episode Fades out bringing the show to an end oh come on really the whole show's over now another Transformer show gone after three seasons and the ending of this one probably got the shortest end of the stick too it really tries to wrap everything up really quickly even though there was plenty more story potential for the future one of these shows has got to go to Four Seasons eventually man come on despite the sudden and underwhelming endings cyberverse was a fun show the bite-sized episodes made it easy to digest in a short time the characters were simple and fun and the premise of each season was interesting and that quintesson storyline dude that's some good stuff and overall the fun Simplicity managed to please tons of Transformers fans who were were all disappointed once again that yet another show ended after three seasons and unfortunately the disappointment for fans didn't stop there as after nearly a decade of operation the multiplayer servers for the video games Revenge of the Fallen wore for Cybertron Dark of the Moon Fall of Cybertron and rise of the Dark Spark were taken offline this news came off the back of the Hasbro Activision partnership ending back in 2018 pulling all of the Transformers games from online stores preventing any new purchases as much as the end was inevitable it was pretty disappointing for fans of the games the days of jumping into a lobby as your own custom-made Transformer were over in fact those custom Transformers went the way of the dodo as well without the servers you couldn't even access your Creations even to admire them it was a pretty big blow to fans of the games as well as creators in that area who had made plenty of clever and fun skits with their friends in the multiplayer Arenas it was the end of an era to be sure and it wasn't even the only one because at the same time rescue Bots Academy the sequel to Rescue Bots came to a close with its second season which brought the aligned continuity to an end despite the quiet understated ending the aligned continuity did manage to last for an impressive 10 years shaping many Transformers fans perception of the franchise while certainly not the ambitious unified effort Hasbro had planned back in 2010 with the release of war for Cybertron it kind of did exactly what Hasbro wanted it to it created a unified approach to the characters the backstory ideas that have survived and will continue to survive even without the umbrella of a unified continuity and ultimately the aligned continuity would be looked back on fondly as it not only introduced plenty of fans to the brand but it also featured some of the most ambitious Transformer stories ever but following the end of plenty of aspects of the franchise a new era was to begin as fans set their sights onto the next Transformers Adventure the first of Netflix's war for Cybertron Trilogy Siege while there were plenty of apprehensive fans after to the critically maligned Prime Wars Trilogy especially considering some of those leads are still present with this new show perhaps Rooster Teeth could pull through as all led up to the first chapter's release on July 30th with so much having come to a close in 2020 Siege was now here to fill the Gap in an otherwise Barren year for Transformers [Music] across six 20-minute episodes war for Cybertron Siege follows the Autobots and Decepticons in a quest to recover the allspark to end the war the Decepticons want to use it to reformat the autobots and the Autobots want to blast it off world removing its Temptation and while the first of rooster teeth's efforts wasn't as widely panned as machinima's Prime Wars Trilogy this first entry still isn't very good while the animation and models were certainly a step up fans criticized the poor voice acting the poor writing and the absolute glacial pacing criticisms also stemmed from the feeling that this seemed like it was aimed exclusively at 35 year old dudes and no one else you know the people who want to desperately justify their Obsession by having a dark and gritty version of G1 where there's death and violence and everyone's miserable and there are no annoying human characters to distract from the cool robots this approach is unfortunately inaccessible to anyone not in that crowd because it doesn't allow for any kind of emotional connection or investment and you need to have a weird amount of knowledge about Transformers to understand half of what's going on the characterization isn't right A lot of the time either and I'm not saying that every approach needs to be identical but it just feels wrong to have an Optimus Prime that's always bitter and angry The Optimist who played basketball was way cooler but the character that gets it the worst is undeniably Bumblebee traditionally bumblebee is the youngest and often smallest of the Autobots but he's got a spark of gold he's empathetic he cares for his fellow bot and his connection with the human characters allows him to be pretty relatable there's a reason he's often referred to as the kid appeal character but here bumblebee is a cynical Energon dealer who doesn't want to choose any side at least until the plot kind of forces him to team up with the Autobots of all the things they decided to change from this otherwise G1 derivative show that's probably the most bizarre eventually the show resolves with Optimus Prime successfully sending the all-spark through a space bridge to an unknown destination then he and the Autobots launch away from Cybertron on the ark to follow the all-spark through the space Bridge leaving Megatron and the Decepticons behind on Cybertron which is a direct lead-in to the second chapter of this Trilogy which you know what let's give Rooster Teeth the benefit of the doubt this was their first outing there are some growing pains with these things let's see if part two can bring it home while news was relatively silent regarding the sequel show following siege's release eventually the marketing efforts did get underway in the fall of 2020. a couple of trailers were released for the second chapter which was now titled earthrise which all led to December 30th where after five months The Adventures of the Autobots and Decepticons would move Beyond Cybertron and into the Stars thank you [Music] earthrise picks up not long after the end of Siege seeing the Autobots and Decepticons Traverse the Galaxy coming across a variety of characters and Concepts like a quintesson scorponok and even Skylinks as well as the arrival of Galvatron who traveled from the future to speak with Megatron which leaves the question is earthrise a true show of rooster teeth's potential in the franchise is it an improvement over Siege unfortunately no it might actually be worse I mean there are interesting Concepts like a space station stuck inside of a space bridge and the idea of bringing in Galvatron from the future is kind of neat but overall earthrise is more of the same if you like Siege you'll like this if you didn't like Siege he won't like this as it's got all of the same problems it even exacerbates some like shining a spotlight onto the fact that this Optimus is just a terrible leader the whole thing where he threw the all-spark into the space bridge and Siege had terrible effects for Cybertron here and to the show's credit literally everyone else is pointing out how much this guy sucks so but eventually the Autobots and Decepticons aboard their respective ships wind up crashing on Earth in the sixth and final episode of earthrise leading right into the third chapter which if the toy line is anything to go by it looks like it'll involve some Beast Wars but even with that promise this Trilogy is O for two so far so I'm not exactly waiting in line for part three to also be underwhelming and that was a sentiment held by plenty of fans fans who were just as critical of earthrise as they were of Siege because of that the overall air going into part 3 was definitely not one of excitement but one of obligation we've made it this far I guess we have to see how it all ends 2021 got off to another slow start with not much news to report in the early months of the year but there was the occasional smattering of news like the announcement that the third war for Cybertron series Kingdom would debut in July on top of that a new Transformer show was set to debut on Nickelodeon sometime in 2022 but perhaps the biggest news came in June of 2021 where as theaters were starting to open up again as people were getting vaccinated a massive announcement was made for the big screen future of the Transformers the reveal of the next movie Transformers rise of the beasts to be directed by Stephen cable Jr starring Anthony Ramos and Dominique Fishback in the lead roles with Peter Cullen set to voice Optimus Prime and Ron Perlman set to voice Optimus primal because that's right the Beast Wars are coming to the big screen well at least some of them a handful of maximals are to join the Autobots in a battle against the terracons in the next adventure Sen event for release June 24 2022. it's been a while since a big movie news has come out and this announcement gave fans quite the smorgasbord fans were disappointed however that Gary chalk was not returning to voice Optimus primal you know after fan petitioning up Peter Cullen back to voice Optimus Prime for the first movie fans were hoping for a repeat of history with Primal but Ron Perlman had voiced Primal before in the third prime Wars entry power of the primes and his extensive career beyond that meant that Primal was still unsafe if not his original hands but this announcement made it clear that Beast War's Nostalgia was coming through in full force after a slew of G1 and 80s Nostalgia 90s kids were starting to get their fill with the maximals and Predacons taking Center Stage once again and while rise of the beasts was still a ways out with production having Only Just Begun the Beast Wars made their way to Netflix for the third and final of rooster teeth's war for Cybertron Trilogy marketing for the conclusion began mere weeks before its debut exciting the fans of C age and Earth rise while garnering nothing more than an eyebrow raised from non-fans but either way on July 29th war for Cybertron kingdom was released on Netflix as such fans and non-fans alike journeyed to the streaming service to witness the Autobots and Decepticons meet the maximals and Predacons [Music] [Music] picking up after the events of earthrise Kingdom sees the Autobots and Decepticons searching for the allspark on prehistoric Earth alongside as promised their maximal and Predacon counterparts but does this Union of two Transformers generations end up working out does Rooster Teeth finally pull something off right at the end well still no but kingdom is an improvement over Siege and especially earthrise it moves at a much faster pace which keeps it from being as boring as its predecessors and it's neat to see Optimus Prime and Optimus primal on screen together even if it would be cooler if they were voiced by Peter Cullen and Gary Chalk in fact the voices are still the show's most glaring issue not that the actors are doing a terrible job but given that the voices for the original Beast Wars characters are very iconic as especially David K as Megatron these new voices have a lot to live up to but the characterization to some of the Beast Wars characters is alright namely Dinobot black arachnia rat trap and even Megatron to a certain extent hell Starscream gets a little bit more to do here but overall like with the first two entries there are better Outlets to watch what this show does I mean you want to watch the Beast Wars characters do cool stuff and well-written stories go watch Beast Wars you want to see some more morally gray stories set during the Great War on Cybertron read the IDW Comics you want to see a good story called war for Cybertron play the video game as much as the concept of seeing the G1 and Beast Wars characters together is the most fun this Trilogy has had it still pales in comparison to both of the original takes on these characters ultimately the six episodes resolve with the Autobots Decepticons maximals and Predacons teaming up to face off against Galvatron and Nemesis Prime from the future and return the allspark to Cybertron restoring their Homeworld thus the planet enters a state of Peace where the Autobots and Decepticons go their separate ways all the while Galvatron and Nemesis Prime's true Master Unicron plans to take another stab at Conquest I guess setting up another Trilogy or something which yeah I'll pass I think overall while the war for Cybertron Trilogy wasn't as critically maligned as the prime Wars Trilogy it still wasn't well received by plenty of fans and its mark on the franchise would Fade Away pretty much immediately after Kingdom released as fans swiftly moved on to the next hopefully better Series in the meantime in September of 2021 fathom events hosted an event celebrating the 35th anniversary of the Transformers the Movie re-releasing the movie in theaters for two days allowing fans to revisit perhaps the single most influential piece of Transformers media out there with the most quotes characters and ideas that have persisted through the entire franchise ever since at the same time the Hasbro pulse YouTube channel started uploading every episode of the original G1 cartoon all four seasons all 98 episodes available to watch for all which is neat on top of that news continued to circulate around the filming of Transformers rise of the beasts with production running until the middle of October it was here that all of the vehicles for the autobots and terracons were officially revealed showing off the alt modes for Optimus Prime Bumblebee RC wheel Jack maybe and Jazz Wait no that's actually not Jazz it's Mirage then on the other side is Scourge nightbird and an unknown tow truck the maximals of course were not revealed as they don't turn into cars but the reveal of these vehicles was enough to keep interest high and with production having concluded the marketing efforts were to begin in the lead-up to the June 2022 release oh never mind the movie just got delayed an entire year yeah the movie's now set for release June 9th 2023 nearly an entire year after it was supposed to release it was an incredibly disappointing development for fans who were once again getting excited for the Transformers return to the big screen it all came off the back of a shake-up behind the scenes at Paramount with a new CEO taking over resulting in some shifts for their theatrical future with the next Star Trek movie also delayed to December of 2023. ultimately the recent surge of news regarding Transformers was swiftly brought to a close as there would be yet another year without the robots in Disguise hitting movie theaters but despite this disappointing delay there was something very surprising in the Here and Now for Transformers fans because after much poking and prodding after the rushed season 3 finale sparked fans to petition for the show's Revival it finally happened Transformers cyberverse was back for season four now that never happens I mean the last time a Transformer show got a fourth season was back in 1987. oh actually really Rescue Bots got a fourth season I guess there was that but either way fans had gotten what they wanted cyberverse was back two 45-minute specials were to be released in November of 2021 picking up where season 3 left off introducing the rest of the Dinobots beside Grimlock and overall bringing the show to a hopefully more satisfying conclusion while it wouldn't be a full-fledged season it would be 90 minutes of all new adventures with the Autobots and Decepticons and considering that the first three seasons were widely regarded as some of the best Transformers TV in years a return of any scale was more than welcome as such after a year and a half since season three ended fans Journey to the Transformers YouTube channel for the premiere of the two 45-minute episodes the much requested extended finale to Transformers cyberverse [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] the first of these two episodes picks up after the death of Megatron and defeat of Megatron X at the end of season 3. now the Autobots and Decepticons are gathering to sign a peace treaty to unify Cybertron once again well that is until the entire planet is suddenly Frozen in Time unable to move as a band of mercenaries referred to as the immobilizers arrive consisting of new characters night bird bug bite afterburner double Crosser and their Commander Sound Blaster along with his pet buzzsaw now you might be thinking hey these guys look exactly like some of the other characters in the show well surprisingly the show thought the same thing hey double crossing they got a double ugly here too I'll give you a double headache in fact sound blaster's entire motivation for coming to Cybertron is that he was outmatched in a music battle against sound wave so he wants to enact revenge on Soundwave and the rest of the planet at the same time is there anyone that can stop him well thankfully there is as Grimlock wasn't Frozen in time and he ends up teaming up with new Dinobot sludge snarl Slug and swoop and in a nice twist swoop is actually a genius she even has her own TF Wiki known as wit Wiki which is fun on top of that with the help of the Enigma of combination the Dinobots are able to combine to form volcanicus which in a training montage very reminiscent of some of the stuff in robots in Disguise the Dinobots have to learn to work together to move their United body and once they do they're able to face off against the mercenaries and defeat them with ease alright wait that was kind of easy too easy in fact Well turns out these weren't the only mercenaries as they're all here with their boss Trypticon this is your boss isn't really an accurate description I think of myself more as a firm yet better employer who expects nothing less than dedicated employees who will always do their best which ultimately leads to a final battle where volcanicus fights off against Trypticon which is a pretty big fight that results in the dynobots using the time freezing weapon to lock him in stasis and in turn free the Autobots and Decepticons alright Cybertron is saved and the Autobots and Decepticons can officially sign the peace treaty overall a fun little Adventure introducing some new characters some new ideas and a funny take on Trypticon as a mercenary boss but that's only the first episode there's still one more to go [Music] foreign [Applause] [Music] the second and final episode is much grander in scope this time seeing a Decepticon Invasion Force attacks Cybertron but these aren't any Decepticons they're the perfect Clone Army created by Megatron X in Another Universe although with Megatron X's defeat they're now led by Tarn taken right out of the IDW Comics who wants to take over Cybertron bending even the treaty-bound Decepticons to his will but ultimately the Autobots and Decepticons have been through too much to turn on each other now they stood up against the quintessons against Megatron X and together the entire force of the autobot and decepticon Army's turn against Tarn and his clones leading to a pretty big final battle featuring pretty much every introduced character those little bug things from season three even show up to help for a bit and there are some fun moments with the Autobots Newfound teleporting ability Autobots Optimus if you'll allow me Autobots made this one for you excellent wheel Jack ultimately it leads to a showdown where it seems Optimus will stop Tarn no hot rod will stop Tarn nope neither of them will in fact the one to finally defeat Tarn is Soundwave born most inferior [Music] [Music] with probably the most powerful sound wave in the universe Tarn is destroyed and his clones are neutralized but as a result sound wave was also destroyed it's a fairly unique turn for that character but one that's been well set up throughout the show he was the other main Commander during the quintesson Takeover in season 3 working side by side with hot rod and following Megatron's death at the end of season 3 he became the de facto leader of the Decepticons which all adds up to an interesting and well set up conclusion for the character as such the remaining Autobots and Decepticons celebrate their Victory and toast to sound wave they're all together all are one and with a big old group hug the show comes to an end it's solid stuff perhaps not as groundbreaking as the quintesson stuff from season 3 but it continues to fund the first three seasons had and brings things to a much less rushed conclusion ultimately cyberverse will go down not just as one of the rare shows to survive past season 3 but one of the best Transformers show yet but before 2021 could come to a close over the holiday season Beast Wars celebrated its 25th anniversary this was celebrated not just by fans but also by plenty of the voice actors who all sent a holiday greeting to fans this came in conjunction with David K's own holiday message in fact since 2011 David K has been singing Christmas songs in the voice of Beast Wars Megatron every year as a fun holiday tradition a tradition that Gary chalk the voice of Optimus primal joined in on in 2017 is being referred to as Primal parodies which is fun both actors singing Christmas songs as their respective characters has become a highlight of every year for Transformers fans and with the 25th anniversary of Beast Wars fans certainly felt that nostalgic wave and despite rise of the Beast being postponed to 2023 it's clear that all of Beast Wars characters and ideas are going to continue to influence the franchise for years to come which brings us to 2022 the final year of our Transformers Journey what a long way we have come 38 years of this franchise all of its highs and lows from the kids shows to the testicle jokes we've really seen it all or have we because on March 25th an all-new Transformer show was released on Netflix which would prove that Transformers fans really hadn't seen anything at all that all of our preconceived notions of the franchise only scratched the surface emotionless parts [Music] [Music] myself the main character of this show transforms into a cheeseburger and it's the most revolutionary thing the franchise has done since Beast Wars I mean this show probably won't have the same kind of long-term impact that Beast Wars has had but for all intents and purposes it's a completely original show that just so happens to be called Transformers it introduces a small army of brand new characters the botbots brought to life by an Energon storm who roam a shopping mall during its closed hours at night all the while trying to avoid the security guard Dave while there are so many characters the main ones the show focuses on are the Lost Bots featuring Burger Tron the cheeseburger dimlit the flashlight clog stopper the plunger Bonsai the bonsai plant and kick me the soccer ball together they go on fun kid-friendly Adventures where they try and get accepted into the larger botbot Community with tons of jokes sight gags and the occasional Transformers reference along the way it's a fun show there's not much to it it kind of feels in the same vein as shows like 16 or Total Drama Island not necessarily in premise or style but more that it just feels like this is a show where you might not hear about it much now unless you look in the right places but in 10 15 years when today's kids have all grown up there might be people saying hey remember bot Bots yeah I love that show also clog stopper is voiced by Christian Potenza who actually provided his voice for both 16 and Total Drama which is fun overall the show's light on its feet it's not too long there are even some jokes that'll get the adults laughing so if you're perfectly fine with watching a kids show about a transforming cheeseburger this is a fun time but that brings us to the close of the most recent Transformers show we are all caught up which leaves us one simple question what's next well coming this fall is the all-new show for Nickelodeon Transformers Earth spark still utilizing the Evergreen G1 designs whilst bringing in some new Concepts and ideas that and Optimus Prime is going to be voiced by Alan Tudyk which is a very unexpected choice I wonder what he thinks about that but not for me I mean Bridge down all right he's got this I'm confident of course next summer sees the release of Transformers rise of the beasts provided it doesn't get pushed back again but it was recently confirmed that Pete Davidson and Michelle yeoh have joined the cast as Mirage and air razor respectively which is the first piece of news we've gotten from the movie in like a year so that's cool but if it's successful Paramount and Hasbro want it to kick off an all-new Trilogy so perhaps we'll be seeing regularly releasing Transformers movies again and on top of that there's supposed to be an animated movie set on Cybertron directed by Josh Cooley who previously directed Toy Story 4. it could be interesting it's been in development hell for a while so who knows if it'll make the plan 2024 release but it could be cool the Comics World brings some sadder news however as IDW will no longer carry the license to Transformers in 2023 it's currently unknown who will take on Transformers next but one can only hope that they continue the incredible Legacy that IDW had over its impressive 17-year stint with the franchise beyond that the franchise will no doubt continue to evolve or rather transform as the years go on new shows new movies rebooting the franchise every few years giving new versions of Optimus Prime Megatron and The Clash of good versus evil a clash that has finally made its way to Lego after several attempts by Hasbro to create their own Lego knockoff they finally gave in and joined with the real deal to create Optimus Prime it's a fun set too and maybe he'll be followed up with bumblebee or Megatron who knows but now after all of this talking about Transformers I have one simple question left to answer is Transformers the best franchise of all time yes and I will not be taking counter arguments big robots fighting each other is so cool dude it's so cool in fact that when I heard that fathom events was putting on a 15th anniversary re-release for the first Michael Bay movie I actually went to the US to see it no other franchise is that kind of power and it was awesome too I mean the visual effects the sound design made all the better because the speakers were turned all the way up like there's no match for that the first three movies will always be near and dear to me as well as the early years of the aligned continuity you know Prime the Cybertron games it's the generation of Transformers that I grew up with and has always been a foundational pillar in my mind you know what makes it even better fans of the Cybertron games have actually managed to bring back the multiplayer servers while it takes some setting up the multiplayer for the Golden Age of Transformers games is back online which is pretty cool it's further proof that some of the most vocal members of the fandom have been very supportive of the franchise even for shows that have been off the air for over a decade decade like Transformers Animated it's thanks to them that while the show never did get a fourth season plenty of information regarding what could have been has been released over the years in fact at TF nation in 2019 plenty of the cast got together for a script reading of what would have been the two-part season 4 premiere titled the trial of Megatron a script reading that as of last year is now on YouTube for all to enjoy it's fun to see a fan base that's supportive of the franchise and wants to see it do good things and the great thing is Transformers is constantly evolving every few years a new creative team steps in with their own vision for these characters and while the franchise isn't going through the wild variations like it did in the early 2000s it's always fun to see where different people go with these familiar ideas and I'll be there every step of the way because Transformers is awesome Optimus Prime is probably my favorite fictional character ever his moral compass is always pointing North he's always saying the right things and he always sounds cool when he does now now before I go I do want to give a quick shout out to some major sources of information that I genuinely couldn't make this video without first is TF Wiki The Hub of virtually everything in the Transformers franchise from the most iconic to the most obscure it was incredibly handy to find release dates clips and old forgotten toy commercials from the 90s that had rap music another is Chris mcfeely who created a series on YouTube called the basics which covers well the basics on a wide variety of Transformers topics you know as much as I think I know about the franchise every Basics episode that comes up proves that there's still so much I don't know and finally there's the Transformers live action movie blog which has cataloged entries surrounding the development and production of all of the live action movies dating all the way back to July 2005. another invaluable resource to find set photos videos and getting a sense of how people were talking about these movies as they were coming out so I'd like to thank them for being huge sources of information and I'd like to thank you for taking this journey with me for watching this short and concise video all the way to the end and who knows maybe in a couple years I'll come back to this franchise to see how it evolves from here before that happens though I'll probably be back with another retrospective at some point until then however this will be the end of this video and I will see you guys later [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you

Channel: Prime's Theater

Views: 398,827

Keywords: Prime, of, Grammar

Id: AhWvOW1NGBs

Length: 140min 47sec (8447 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 22 2022