Transformers: Energon

Since the fantastic Beast Wars, and the decent Beast Machines, Transformers fans have not been very lucky. We've gotten Robots in Disguise, which I never really got into, due to lack of interest. Then, came along, Armada. The action was sparse, the jokes were horrible and I couldn't stand the kids they partnered the "Minicons" with. They had Pokemon'D Transformers.

Now, here comes the light at the end of the tunnel. I was skeptical about Energon, since it was a direct sequel to Armada, but when I started watching I was quite relieved. The fighting and explosions are quite fun to watch, and this time its in a new 3D cell shading form, which at times, can feel awkward, but still is a great addition to the show. Plus, while Armada tired me out with its boring storyline, Energon had me hooked.

And finally, my favorite enhancement, the characters. It seems like they really upped personalities in Energon. A perfect example would be Cyclonus, not so much of an interesting character in the predecessor, but here, he's a Quickstrike-like madman.

While this series isn't the best, its still a nice little candy for us Transformers fans, who have suffered for so, so long.

8/10. Recommended.

If Transformers Armada was a painfully slow climbing theme park ride that came with a satisfyingly good payoff once it picked up momentum, Transformers Energon/Superlink(i watched both English and Japanese versions) would be like a rocket launch disaster; starting off really strong but blowing up halfway and getting reduced to one of the worse Transformers shows in recent years.

Taking place 10 years after Armada, Transformers Energon's opening episodes are extremely well written with many character subplots thrown in and for the first time, the human characters are actually likable.

Kicker has to handle his "coming of age" angst, the added responsibilities that come with growing up and to step out of the shadows of his father and the Autobots. Demolishor has a decent character arc regarding his wavering sense of purpose with the Autobots and his uncertain loyalty to the decepticon cause that he believed no longer existed. Even Ironhide is set up as an impulsive young rookie who grows up learns the true meaning of being a soldier over the course of the episodes.

Great, all the themes and subplots are in place. Then what happens? They all get conveniently forgotten over time, leading to subsequent episodes that have little to no character development or advancement of the subplots. The main plot itself, involving the decepticon's plan to revive unicron seems stretched to breaking point over the course of the 52 episodes. I feels like only 20+ episodes of actual story material sprinkled into 52 episodes. The episodes themselves never actually contain 20+ minutes of story material since A lot of time is wasted on necessary reiteration of plot points via dialogue, rambling monologues, stock footage of battles or transformations and senseless action.

The animation is actually a step up from the final episodes of Transformers Armada. It utilities a mixture of 2D for human characters and Cel shaded 3D animation for the robots. The 2D animation is superb. Vibrant and sharp colors with attractive character designs and a better attention to detail make the humans quite appealing to the eye.

The robots on the other hand do not warrant the same level of praise. Though done in 3D with least 8 years worth of better animation software than what Mainframe had to work with on Beast Wars, the animation here is actually a lot worse that the 1996 Beast Wars. Though character designs are nice to look at due to their insane level of art detail, their movements are extremely stiff, sometimes even stiffer than the 2D animated robots from Transformers Armada. "Body Gestures" just involve the 3D models "snapping" into different positions like still photographs in a slide show and "movement" is just the 3D models pulled across the screen. The 3D characters have no feel of "mass" in the way they move. Other CGI effects like explosions and laser fire look very primitive and are sometimes off model. The action scenes are exciting at first, with large scale yet fully animated fights involving many characters are made do-able with the CGI. But after a while, the uninspired directing and unprofessionally storyboarded battles get real boring, real fast.

Having watched both Japanese and English versions, i must say that both had its good and bad points. The voice acting in the Japanese version seemed a little too "flat". Many of the characters sound alike and the human characters tend to over do a lot of their lines, giving a very "high school stage play" feel to the whole thing. The English version was by far better acted with the voices having very distinct personalities and nuances to them. Basically Lines were more realistically delivered by the actors than the Japanese version. However good acting does not save a horrible script and by golly, the script was a complete mess. The dialogue, once boring or irritating, devolved to the point of senseless babbling and even turned illogical and contradictory. Some characters have up to three different names that interchange between different episodes and sometimes a line is spoken by the wrong voice actor for the wrong character. A terrible, stilted and cliché ridden excuse for a script that sounds worse that the most horrible episodes of Power Rangers. THe Japanese script fares slightly better but is filled to the brim with cheesiness and misplaced humour.

This series is a huge pity. It started off so strong and totally went on a downward spiral into the absurd. Even the Energon comic series which showed so much potential got cut down in its prime and is now left incomplete and open-ended.

This show may make an entertaining watch for anyone below the age of 6, and maybe for the "completist" who MUST watch every single transformers series ever made.

Other than that, Transformers Energon is not worth your money, or your hard drive space.

As said already, Energon is a little better than Armada, which was a mess. However it could have been much better, nowhere near as good as the original show or Beast Wars. Some of the battles/action(more than Armada and much better quality-wise) are epic status- the highlights of the show by some distance-, the rise of Megatron was a good idea and is the best idea the show had, Megatron is still a cool villain and the voice acting from Garry Chalk, David Kaye and Scott McNeill is decent(though all three were better in Beast Wars, where all give some of their best ever voice acting. The animation is not as bad it is in Armada, but it is rather flat and scrappily put together with some overly-saturated CGI. The character designs take some getting used to, never really dug them personally. The music lacks urgency and atmosphere and the theme tune is at best forgettable. The writing is rather stilted and isn't that involving, not giving the voice actors much to do. Pretty much the same with the stories, which are both juvenile and dull, the best ideas they have read of too much of drawn-out-retreads and that is including the rise of Megatron. Not much characterisation to write home about either, the human characters are over-used and annoying, the lead human character is every bit as obnoxious as any of Armada's human characters combined, while with the exception of Megatron the robots lack personality. The voice acting on the whole- Kaye, Challk and McNeill excepted- is not great, as dry, emotionless and stilted as the writing, they also sound like they're recorded in a helium balloon. All in all, a marginal improvement but could have been so much better. 4/10 Bethany Cox

I can't fathom how terrible this is stay away! Probably rock bottom for the transformers franchise

The second of the Unicron trilogy Transformers: Energon takes a different take on the Transformers.

This time both The Autobots and Decepticons have gain different powers to battle with in this series.

However Transformers Energon really does lack in a lot of things that made the Transformers loved for many years and this was release around the 20th anniversary of Transformers.

There were some good things about the series but the main thing I enjoy about Transformers Energon was the action figures. There were so many good figures so while there are some who might not have enjoy the show can't deny that the line did give us some very good action figures.

The show did feature emotional moments and dark moments which you can expect from Transformers but Energon took it a little bit to the limit which you have to see for yourself to better understand and appreciate.

There were however moments that make you go what were they thinking? if you're a huge fan of Transformers give this one a watch