Optimus is so weak compared to the movies and old series and not the same without Cullen doing the voice am disappointed
119 Reviews
Peter Cullen should've been Optimus voice
themickeyc1 August 2020
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
Great for G1 fans
foxsixteen1 August 2020
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Transformers war for cybertron is best
shaanpanwala31 July 2020
Pretty good. Way too short of a season.
frankblack-7996114 August 2020
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.
My only gripes are that most of the Autobots sound the same and the character models are recycled too often.
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
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
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!
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!
Because I love the mythology
digitalguru-2341231 July 2020
Great but
killionriot1 October 2020
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.
Good, but could've been so much more
clfralin27 October 2020
Let me get this out of the way, I liked this show. Voice acting was solid, all the characters sounded good and like their classic G-1 selves (except Shockwave but we don't talk about that). The animation was absolutely gorgeous and was a great blend of 2D and 3D. The story however, could've been much better. A lot of the characters act very stupid or unlike themselves, most notably Optimus. He makes some truest bizarre choices as a leader, choices that almost lead to the death of tons of Autobots. Many of the plot elements felt incredibly contrived and it was very obvious that characters were just puppets to the narrative.
So far, it is good, but I am hoping on an improvement for later seasons.
Great but...
keazwfkz30 December 2020
A good start
mikimusprimeuk11 August 2020
This looks fantastic and captures the spirit of G1 but with a darker tone. The story is solid and the pacing well done. However some of the voice casting is a bit disappointing. Starscream, Megatron and Jetfire are memorable but much of the rest sound quite generic. I do look forward to Earthrise though.
Gritty and unpolished.
justinmichaelking7 August 2020
Which I think is an appropriate compliment. Great animation, unique angles, but once in a while there will be a weird cut. Like the scene lingers on for 1 second too long. Or there's a delay between lines. Or there's a line out of nowhere, and you wonder which lines got cut that would have made it make sense.
One gripe I have is Alita. Her voice... It's... Just so.... Dramatic.... Every... Single.... Line.... Is spoken with agony.... It just gets old after a while. That's her singular voice. Agony.
One gripe I have is Alita. Her voice... It's... Just so.... Dramatic.... Every... Single.... Line.... Is spoken with agony.... It just gets old after a while. That's her singular voice. Agony.
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.
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.
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
