Long name eh? Well, Transformers Prime was such a success that they went ahead and added a movie. This would maybe clear up some of the loose ends that the show didn’t wrap up and give us a complete ending to the series. While that proved to be a little too much to ask for, the movie did give us some more robot action! So, how did it go?
Well, Unicron has woken up and he wants to destroy Cybertron. To accomplish this, he wakes up Megatron and decides to inhabit his body. Meanwhile, Optimus Prime and Wheeljack head to space to find the Allspark. It’s a noble endeavor, but they left the other Autobots on a hostile planet with Decepticons and Predaking. I definitely has to wonder if Optimus Prime’s decision was a good one. In another subplot, the other Autobots decide to look for the Decepticons who are still hiding somewhere.
If you’re wondering what the Decepticons are up to this time, they’re still cloning the Predacons. They’ve created two more of them and they manage to crush two of the Autobots. Because of this, Ultra Magnus doesn’t really get to do anything for the whole movie. PredaKing still rules the dead Predacons, but it’s a pretty lonely existence.
Well, I think the problem with this film was that it juggled too many subplots. The different story lines were all over the place and the film just wasn’t long enough to show them all. Many scenes were rushed while others were longer than they needed to be. Optimus Prime and Unicron has their climatic fight, but it was only 2-3 minutes. Maybe 5 at the most. The fight was over before it had even begun.
Starscream and Shockwave are really the last two Decepticons on the loose since Knockout is captured aboard the Autobot base for the most part. Towards the end, he looks even worse as he makes a critical decision. Starscream does pretty good for the most part and he even fends off two Predacon warriors. His ending is pretty ambiguous, but I’m confident about his chances. My key reasoning is that Shockwave is attacked by dozens of Predacons at one point, yet he appears almost unscathed towards the end. If he could defeat them while stuck in his alt mode and being crushed, Starscream can definitely take 3 of them on.
Bumblebee’s voice is still hard to get used to. Why does he always get a “hardcore” voice? First he sounded like Ichigo Kurosaki in War For Cybertron and now he sounds like Batman Beyond. I still don’t care for the character, but at least he sounds cool. The other Autobots weren’t especially cool either and they just lacked something. Not even Optimus Prime could stay epic as he had to rely on underhanded tactics and team assists to finish his fight. Some Autobots like Arcee and Ratchet get the shaft. Arcee doesn’t really get to fight at all and she acts pretty out of character for some of her lines. Megatron’s ending was definitely good, but it was definitely cheesy. Ah well, we can’t win them all!
Either way, we’re here for the fights, not the characters or the plot! The fight scenes are pretty good and the best one was probably Ultra Magnus and Smokescreen vs the two Predacons. Unicron against the majority of the Autobots in the base was also pretty fun. Unicron definitely had a lot of cool abilities and his fights were fun to watch. I just wish that he could have fought for a little longer.
Spoiler alert, Shockwave is still out there! I think that there is definitely room for a sequel. With Optimus Prime gone, Bumblebee can be the new leader until Rodimus steps in. Shockwave can hire some new recruits and then the series will have restarted. Maybe he could even bring in Soundwave. If anything, I think that this movie would lead in pretty well to Regeneration One if not for some major plot lines.
One pretty positive thing about the film was the soundtrack. They threw in a couple of good opera musics and there was even a retro G1 theme thrown in there. The music was fun to listen to and it made the film more enjoyable. Any scene is always made that much better when there is a good beat to listen to.
The Dinobots do not appear in the film which is pretty sad. I was definitely hoping that they would appear, but I guess we’ve got Transformers 4 to look forward to for that….maybe. The Predacon army was all right, but while they were a lot of them, they didn’t really stand out. Once again, the Autobots were heavily outmatched, but they made it to the end thanks to a lot of lucky breaks and bad aiming on the Decepticon side.
The review may have had a lot of faults with the film, but it was still good. It’s definitely best if you look at it as a few lost episodes instead of as a movie. I think that the series finale was a better end to this part of the franchise, but this one is still good. It does not feel like a film since they kept in the theme song and it didn’t look higher budget, but one could argue that it makes the film more nostalgic. If you want some good popcorn fun, then you should enjoy the film. Of course, if you want the perfect robot experience, you’ll need to check out the original Transformers movie!
Overall 7/10
DReager1.com 
“Megatron’s ending was definitely good, but it was definitely cheesy”
It’s good and cheesy?
On your blog, you claim that you’re a huge Godzilla fan…and yet you are surprised when someone says that something is “good and cheesy”?
I suppose the reviewer liked the scene, but still had to admit it was a bit cheesy. I haven’t seen the film yet, but I can believe it. Some of the most famous scenes in cinema are a bit cheesy (Darth Vader’s “NOOOOOO” comes to mind.
Godzilla is rarely ‘cheesy,’ usually the cheesiness comes from the dubs which turns the film (for example King Kong vs. Godzilla) into a bit of a comedy, that’s where the cheesiness and campiness gets its reputation.
Moving to the actual cheesiness, that would likely refer to infamous scenes such as Godzilla’s victory dance in Monster Zero, his flying ability in vs. Hedorah, and his flying kick in vs. Megalon. The difference between those scenes and this is that those are portrayed as silly and funny, especially with the music in the background. This scene however in Prime is portrayed as ultra serious and I really could not find any cheese in it.
I still haven’t seen the film, but I suppose it is an “eye of the beholder” thing. What is cheesy for one person can be serious for someone else. There are many people who would claim that old shows like Star Trek or Lone Ranger had no “cheese”, but those people are just kidding themselves.
Maybe the reviewer should have gone more into detail. Was it the music that was cheesy? The dialogue? I think I can guess what Megatron does, and admittedly, it sounds like it could be hard to take seriously – if done wrong.
As for Godzilla, I wouldn’t know, I haven’t seen much, but I thought that most of the old films got gag dubs because they figured that people at the cinema wouldn’t be able to take it seriously, like what happened with Beast Wars in Japan.
When an example like The Lone Ranger is brought up, it’s important to note that it might be cheesy because it’s very old. At the time, I doubt people were laughing. It was meant to be taken seriously then, but today some parts might seem so outdated that it becomes cheesy.
Well, then that’s the problem. You have a very common misconception of Godzilla. Godzilla has some cheesiness, but for the most part it’s anything but.
I recommend checking the film out soon.
The thing is, it depends on the film/television show.
If something hasn’t aged well, lets say The Lone Ranger, that just means it was arguably not that good to begin with. People just didn’t know better.
Just because something is old doesn’t mean it can’t have aged well.
For example, Twilight Zone is a show that, to this day, isn’t cheesy or “campy” (aside from comedy episodes where that was the intent). Meanwhile, The Exorcist is still creepy today. Finally, Batman: The Animated Series still holds up, more so than many cartoons that aired afterwards.
If something is truly “good”, it will age well. I highly doubt that, say, excellent films like The Dark Knight, Gravity, or the like will ever be called cheesy or outdated, even in 50 years.
It is true that some things can age well and others not at all.
The first Tron for example may have had some really cool flashy effects in its day, but today it would be viewed as cheesy. Now it’s not the film’s fault, it’s just that technology has advanced so greatly that it just looks kinda funny. A product of its time.
The Green Hornet series is I think another example of something that is old but has aged well, while sadly the ‘modern’ take is already viewed as cheesy.
Of course, there will always be the personal argument. I think ET is extremely cheesy, and don’t understand how anyone could think otherwise, but I guess the film has its fans. I suppose one can view the ending to this film cheesy because the viewer just can’t accept a certain character making a certain decision. But ultimately, the ending to the Prime movie could be hard to accept for purists. It’s a risky move, but I thought they pulled it off really well.