Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy (TV Series 2020–2021) Poster

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6/10
Peter Cullen should've been Optimus voice
themickeyc1 August 2020
Optimus is so weak compared to the movies and old series and not the same without Cullen doing the voice am disappointed
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8/10
Wow!
marcotiero31 July 2020
I loved this! Lots of the great characters from the original, minus the annoying and cheesy human characters. I loved the darker tone!

It would have been nice to see a bit more transforming, but at the same time, they're on their own planet so they wouldn't have as much of a need to be in disguise.

A lot of reviews have lamented the voice acting, I felt it was decent. It was great that Starscream sounded the same, but unfortunately, many didn't sound quite the same. I must admit, at the start I did think that Optimus sounded like Peter Cullen but as it progressed, not so much.

I've not seen any of the series after G1, so can't comment on them, but I feel this does the franchise justice.
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6/10
Lifeless and dull...for the most part.
Dormamu1 August 2020
Warning: Spoilers
Transformers: War for Cybertron reintroduces classic characters from the original 1984 cartoon and re-imagines the iconic Transformers war. Season 1 focuses on the war on Cybertron before the two groups of Autobots and Decepticons crash-land on Earth. I had high hopes for this show especially since it's airing on Netflix, but in my honest opinion, season 1 is a misfire. Right of the bat, the animation is OK, it's not something breathtaking or revolutionary for 2020. The story is fine, we see the two ideologies of Optimus and Megatron clashing (same old, same old) but we also get to see some heartwarming scenes where Autobots and Decepticons actually help each-other. I liked the fact that they showed us not every Decepticon is evil mainacal killer, and not every Autobot is exactly an angel. They briefly touch upon the mythos of the Transformers and their planet, like the Guardians and the Matrix, but it's just enough to make you interested and wanting more of it. Also, Megatron saying that he fights for peace, not for annihilating an entire race of Cybertronians was one of my favorite moments. And this is where the good things end. By the third episode Megatron changes this ideology and suddenly wants every Autobot killed. None of the characters really get to shine, most of them are just there so fans can spot them and feel nostalgic. The sound design and mixing was dreadful. There is no piece of music that sticks, the voice acting is forgetful and probably the worst thing about this show was them talking at the SLOWEST rate possible. What was up with that? It felt like one short line of dialogue was spoken at the course of a few minutes and it was probably the main factor why the episodes felt way longer than they actually were. The fights were just random shooting and AutoBots hitting all their targets (contrary to the Decepticons). All in all, not necessarily a bad season but not a very good one either. Very predictable and didn't really bring anything new to the table. I must say, the last episode was pretty well done and exciting and it almost made up for the whole season, but the previous 5 were way too boring and meh. There is room for improvement tho, we still have 2 seasons to go and i hope we'll get more character interactions, heart-felt moments and epic battles. For now 6/10 is my rating.
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6/10
Was super hyped, but let down in the end
pgancarc30 July 2020
Transformers Siege is the first chapter in the War For Cybertron Trilogy. I have to start off and say that I was really hyped for this show. It's the first time we're getting a more mature tone with the franchise since TF Prime. I'm sad to say, that I was left underwhelmed.

Let's start with the positives. The animation is incredible. It's very nice to look at and Rooster Teeth did an incredible job.

The plot is very good, all be it, it's nothing new and we've seen it before. They made some minor tweaks to the story to make it more interesting and I think they did a good job. It keeps you going cause you're wondering what other things they ch she's to spice up the sorry, even though the ending is VERY predictable due to us already knowing about the other 2 chapters.

Megatron's voice actor by far is the best one in the show. They got same man who did Megatron in the Prime Wars Trilogy and again did a great job.

Unfortunately, for me, that's where the positives end.

The voice acting for me was not great. Optimus Prime just didn't work with me at all. I didn't feel like this was Optimus Prime. The voice actor just tried way too hard to be Peter Cullen and there were some scenes where his delivery was just poor. They should've gone with The Epic Voice Guy for Prime. I think he does a much better Prime. Shockwave's voice was bad. Simple as that. He's supposed to be this cold calculating monotone Decepticon, but he came off as a subpar version of Starscream. Soubdwave's voice wasn't good either. The effect of his iconic voice sounded so bad. Even TFP's Soundwave( that only spoke 4 words) had a MUCH better effect on his voice. But the guy doing the voice wasn't bad. Ironhide was not good either. Way too high pitch for an Autobot that's supposed to be old and gruntled.

Some character choices in this show weren't good either. I admire some of the risks they took, and some of them worked, but others I thought fell flat on their faces. Ratchet for me was the worst risk. In almost every incarnation( including the movies) Ratchet has always been one of Optimus Primes's closest friends/ally's. In this show, he almost hates him and what the Autobot cause represents. Bumblebee I thought was a good risk. At first, I hated him and thought he was arrogant and annoying, but he grew on me as the chapter progressed.

Overall, I was disappointed. This show SO FAR, is not better then TFP or Beast Wars. Both shows after their first season cliffhangers, I was pumped to watch what happens next. With this show, I don't have that feeling, and I'm sad about it. While the show has great animation and very good plot, I can't get behind some of the bad voice acting and certain character personalities they decided to go with. Hopefully, the next 2 chapters will prove me wrong and they'll come back swinging full force. But for now, as I stated multiple times, I'm disappointed.

6/10
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9/10
Brilliant
jdengraver2 August 2020
Warning: Spoilers
Some people just can't be satisfied. These negative reviews must come from children who grew up during Marvels Avengers era.

I grew up watching the G1 80s Transformers and I could not be happier with this current incarnation.

The back story and each factions motivation for the events that occur is an excellent commentary on what it actually means to be free and what compels a being to go to war; survival? conquest? revenge? The 80s animation tried to convey this, but was limited by what was available at the time.

Now it's 2020 - animation technology, story telling and dialogue have come a long way and these creators have done a good job, paying close attention to the original source material while making subtle, yet clever changes in character development.

Namely Bumblebee; Originally he was written as an unquestionably loyal soldier that was nevet afraid to bite off more than he could chew.

In WFC, he is factionless, just trying to survive while staying as far away from the conflict as possible. He wants nothing to do with either side, but eventually is forced to choose.

Is it perfect? No. My biggest complaint would be that Peter Cullen and Frank Welker do not reprise their roles as Optimus Prime and Megatron, respectively.

But the current voice actors do a good job.

My advice; manage your expectations and watch it pretending you're a 7 year old in the 80s.
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6/10
Siege was good, Earthrise not as good.. looking forward to Kingdom
stronglook31 December 2020
It's such a shame this isn't better as the toys really are fantastic and the onscreen representation of said toys it's mostly bang on, but there's so much here that could be better. It's not even a fun show to watch, it drags, the dialogue is slow.. painfully. Some fans are saying to watch it at 1.5 speed! Apparently that helps. Optimus Prime's voice actor is rubbish, Starscream's is great, but eitherway they just aren't given enough to work with. There is a lot to like here but mostly it's just draining to watch. They could have made something fun for kid's and adults like G1, Beast Wars, Prime or Animated but unfortunately I think it's down there with the Unicron Trilogy in terms of quality. I'd truthfully say it has an air of Webisode quality. Hopefully Kingdom will wrap it up nicely, but I know they could have done so much better.
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9/10
One of the best animated shows right now!
thephenomenalsami30 July 2020
This show is awesome for transformers lovers and people who are new to the franchise! My only wish is for them to give us more than just 6 episodes per season because u can love the show if there are only 6 23 min long episodes.
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6/10
depression inducing
andy-hungster2 August 2020
Warning: Spoilers
This has to be the saddest Transformers series ever. While Megatron is very resourceful, Optimus has no strategy, no communication skill, and no facial expression (like Jon Snow). Both Megatron & Optimus talks w/ super slow speed and depressing low voice.

The plot is mostly 2 hours of autobots getting beaten up over and overir again. Their final plan succeeded only because Omega Supreme appeared at the last minute to help them.

To avoid getting so depressed, it may help to just watch the 1 min recap at beginning of shows #1-5, then entire #6.
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9/10
Great for G1 fans
foxsixteen1 August 2020
Been a fan since the 80s and this was a nice throwback to Gen 1. Give it a try!
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Just because they look like G1 again, doesn't mean this is good
horrorgasm31 July 2020
Obviously the visual design is great, but that's really the only nice thing I have to say about it. This is some of the most lethargic voice acting I've ever heard. A lot of the characters sound almost identical. Almost all of them sound like they're about to fall asleep. Characters have a tendency to speak very slowly too, sometimes leaving huge awkward pauses between words for dramatic effect I guess, but they do it sooooo often, most of the time when there isn't anything particularly dramatic being said, that it's just unpleasant.

For that matter, the dialogue itself feels off sometimes too, disjointed and awkward as if there's been some kind of poor translation from another language, but...there hasn't. This was made in America. The guy doing the voice of Starscream was the only one that seemed to be giving it any effort. The guy doing the voice of Optimus is kind of painful to listen to because he starts out trying to play the part with a Peter Cullen impression, but he can't seem to hold it for more than a few seconds at a time and just keeps slipping into a normal voice most of the time. It's pretty bad.

The pacing also has a kind of Dragon Ball Z feel to it (not a compliment). There's a lot of standing around very slowly talking about what's going on and what they're going to do, but not much actual doing. Mostly just a bunch of melodramatic posturing. When there is action it feels pretty clunky, which isn't all that surprising considering the big blocky designs of the characters. They're nice to look at when they're standing still, but they have a pretty low range of articulation in motion, which leads to some weird robo fist fights that feel like you're watching a game of Rockem Sockem Robots.

Honestly I haven't been excited by a new Transformers show since Beast Wars so I don't know why I had any expectations for this, but the trailers made it look like this could be something special, but sorry, just having the characters look like the good old G1 days isn't enough for me when everything else about it is so disappointing. I'd give it a 4 or 5 out of 10 at best.
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6/10
A typical but sloppy one
pronitmallick31 July 2020
Netflix has delivered a Transformers anime series that will definitely make you feel a little nostalgic if you are an old Transformers fan. The story itself is good. The start of the series kind of feel like out of place with a sloppy screenplay but it gets uplifted with time. The dialogue delivery between characters is one of the main attractions of the show. Overall it's an enjoyable series which you can watch at least once.
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9/10
The Transformers show everybody has been yearning for.
mdy-8601330 July 2020
Chapter 1 of Siege is the perfect mix of high production values, sound design, visuals and nostalgia to appeal to fans new and old alike.
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6/10
Transformers that barely transform
sleeping_tiger5 August 2020
Watching this release, I noticed that the Transformers barely transformed. They were mostly in humanoid form, walking, talking, and running. The action scenes were lacking, except for the last episode. But even then, there was a priority placed on unnecessary dialog rather than focusing on the action. The dialog for the most part...was annoying...because of the pauses...the characters made...while speaking. This drags the scenes on for too long. The other unnerving thing was watching Transformers, made up of metallic inanimate objects, panting and breathing like fleshy human beings. Anyway, it's slightly above average for me and worth watching just once because it's Transformers.
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3/10
Voices are horrendous
Reg_and_Raph30 July 2021
The voice acting or direction is absolutely appalling in this. The pace is horrendous. The robots are on the edge of extinction because none of them can finish a sentence before they die of old age. Optimus Prime sounds like he has lung cancer. Im unsure how he actually gets out of bed to fight he is so slow and sickly. Absolutely ruined an otherwise good series.
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Transformers war for cybertron is best
shaanpanwala31 July 2020
I have watched every single transformer part even animated series but we never watched what happend on cybertron so this show is amazing the graphics and pixel are amazing to watch so its amazing
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7/10
Pretty good. Way too short of a season.
frankblack-7996114 August 2020
I thought this was entertaining. It has some deficiencies but overall was good. My major complaint was how short it was. Six, 24 min episodes is almost insulting.
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8/10
Fantastic start to the trilogy
bradpaton-561-40791431 July 2020
Loved seeing a different take on the G1 story and how the bots we love were before they got to earth. The darker take really works and there are some great characterisations and surprises.

My only gripes are that most of the Autobots sound the same and the character models are recycled too often.
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7/10
There's soon good stuff, but its killed by voices and compressed by length
brianholmes-538732 March 2021
This show has a lot of potential, and a lot of interesting concepts. But it squandered what it does have with too few episodes and distracting voice acting.

Not all the voices are bad. Starscream in particular stands out as an excellent incarnation of the character. Megatron isn't bad either. But sadly the worst offender is the the character you listen to most: Optimus Prime. The main issues are in tone. I'm fairly sure its the direction, but unless he's talking completely monotone, he just sounds too angry. Always so angry sounding, and it damages his character. Instead of a good leader questioning himself and his judgement, which is what it seems like the writers wanted, it seems more like an idiot who yells alot but thinks he's deep. Its amazing what bad voice direction can do. There are other characters with similar problems, notably scorpinok, who's practically incomprehensible.

The next issue is the length. The writers clearly had a lot they wanted to do, and they did it. And it seems like a good amount for a regular season of TV. But instead it was all squashed into 6 episodes a piece. Every situation that seems like it could be an entire arc by itself ends up lasting 2 episodes maximum, or even 1. Its less notible in part 1, but in part 2, as they move between locations its easy to notice how quickly they move on, but also how long they linger in places.

There are many things I do like. The quintesson storyline, everything with the decepticons on their own, Jetfire's arc, even some of the stuff with prime. I'd just like it a lot better if the voices weren't off, and we had time dwell on things
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9/10
Does the originals justice
lewy-0945310 August 2020
Watched this for purposes of nostalgia ended up watching the whole season. I used to have these toys as a kid and was obsessed with the cartoon series in the late 80s and lots of the original characters are present in this - I think 'Hound' was my first ever transformer toy! This series however kept me watching even as an adult as had a maturity to it and was dark enough to keep me engaged, also the excellent CGI is mesmerising - I highly recommend!
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7/10
Great Story Line and a good start
legalpower35 August 2020
Loved the story lines. Hated most of the voices except Starscream and Wheeljack. The original g1 characters sounded different with much personality where the ones in this movie fade into the background. Ironhide was suppose to be an older veteran with a twang in his voice. He sounded too young in the movie to be a veteran. I'm hoping that season 2 will be better despite all that and some missing main characters like Jazz and Blaster!
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8/10
The Transformers have rise up again
Terryfan28 December 2020
Warning: Spoilers
As a huge fan of the Transformers this series peak my Interest from the trailer.

Then I binge watch the first season in one night and let me tell you the series prove that you can still keep Transformers as they should be. Action pack, keeping the themes that made Transformers more than meets the eye.

Yes the series does have somethings that could have been done better but those Little things aren't going to ruin my enjoyment of the show.

The series is quite dark for Transformers as we had Beast Wars and Transformers Prime being dark series as well but Transformers War For Cybertron is dark for a lot of reasons.

The voice acting has good work However some of the characters could have been done better to make the voices work better for the characters we knew for years. However you can sense that the cast were doing their best and they did well in some of the emotions characters show in the show.

The animation is also one that can be improved on but there are impressive work on the animation such as when the lighting effects for the character to hide in the shadows and to when they are in tense moments the emotions can be show in the series.

The designs of the characters are very good based on the Siege toy line and with new designs for the series.

They have the G1 feel to their designs which does good for the fans and for the fact you can see how well they did justice.

Transformers War For Cybertron Trilogy is a series that is more than meets the eye
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7/10
Season 1 excellent, S2 bad, S3 good but doesn't deliver the Beast Wars you remember
albertkuc29 July 2021
Warning: Spoilers
Season 1 is brilliant for old G1 fans. Feels like the most taken serious Transformers series I've ever seen. There are some minor flaws such as quick evolution of Megatron, which might be questionable by some fans. Overall very good.

Follow up in season 2 is a big disappointment. Feels like half of the screen time is the fight with Scorponok. Which is fine on its own, but in the hindsight seems as a waste of time. The bigger problem are plot gaps, which doesn't make sense. And at some point Cybertron plot just cuts of and never continues. Did I miss an episode or two?

Season 3 serves an improvement over S2, but has new problems related to the Beast Wars. Predacon Megatron is completely different by character to original series. He used to be a great leader, equivalent to the original Megatron, but here he volunteers to be a servant, and never even tries to be something more. If you watched BW you will not accept this, and in combination with his new voice feels as a completely new character. The other downfall is missing major characters such as Waspinator (not really, but would be fun to see him). No, actually had in mind Tarantulas. He is the one who created Blackarachnia, while she is one of the key characters in S3. Surprisingly Starscream turns out to be a voice of reason at some point, which oddly might feel satisfying. Season finale is a well plotted convergence of the entire story, even if doesn't justify the entire plot.

Overall will rate it 7 for nostalgia. Didn't watch any of the recent series nor the Bay movies (other than speed run in 20 minutes of the first two) so this was my first real encounter since the original Beast Wars.
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10/10
Because I love the mythology
digitalguru-2341231 July 2020
I scored the way I did hoping they make more episodes. My only ask, can the real Optimus please rise? 😁
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6/10
Sooo close!
cjmackco13 December 2020
This reboot ticked so many boxes. The graphic art work is everything a G1 nerd could ask for after all these years. They even managed to nail the voices (in particular..Starscream).

But the lack of sound track left the whole thing sparse, as if it was left on the editing floor unfinished. They took the animation and voices from the original, why not revamp the original sound score. So, so close, but, just leaves you a little empty.
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5/10
Not What Was Expected
aklick6 August 2020
I was super excited for this show. Everything about it looked great. Two episodes in I was extremely disappointed. The acting is poor, the writing is rough, and the action is lacking. I finished through the 6th episode and warmed to it a little but I wouldn't recommend this show if you want something in depth.
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