#transformers review

[stealbeltedradials]

New figure review!

Wonderful-Trans IDW Drift 💖

[mother-of-horror]

I finished season one of Transformers Earthspark! I really liked it! Some of the dialogue was iffy but overall it was a solid story.

Overall:

My favorite terran is probably either Jawbreaker or Nightshade!

My favorite design is probably Elita-one's!

My favorite voices were Megatron's.

The music and sound production was beautiful

Most visuals were very beautiful

It included Grimlock so yippee

I'd give it a 9/10

I do plan on watching the series until I simply can't anymore (whether it just annoys me or I stop enjoying), and then I'd be off to find a new show to watch. I do plan on watching most, if not all, Transformers media so wish me luck

[jessieraves]

Transformers Prime series review

So! I’ve finally put together my transformers prime review! I had half a draft a while back but it got deleted so that took a wind out, and then let’s sayyyyy occupied with current events

But now that things have leveled out and I have a slow work day - found what scraps of my former draft I had, reworked bits and typed a bunch of new stuff! So- hope you enjoy and find value in it!

I think most of my thoughts are packed in my transformers prime season 1 review, here - as most of what the show will have going for it rides off of that season, so i reely comend reading that to get an idea of my general thoughts on the show, its premise and lore, main characters, and ofc my thoughts on season 1. As I won’t be going over the basics again. Also, check my tags!

To begin! I will start with my critiques, issues, cons, etc - I like to pull the band aid off and end with the sweet. But know that I did like the show a lot, and these issues ought not to be taken as a hatred of the show to a dismissal of the creatives intent or talents

The short? I like transformers prime! The first season had me thinking it would be a 11/10 peak transformers - but , tbh, halfway through season 2 started to lose me. And season 3 has some great stuff but adds too much, rushed through them and the core characters are neglected as a result

Cons:

Mid season 2 was a turning point - the human characters started having less to do, characters and plot lines started getting axed , and core dynamics were neglected such as Optimus / Megatron and Megatron / Starscream, as well as new novel dynamics and rivalries

Basically I feel like season 2 fumbled a lot of the stuff brought over from 1, and just gave us back to back mafuffin quests with split rosters that really took out a lot of steam. For example - with season 1/2 , oh no, Optimus prime is taken by Megatron! He thinks he’s Orion pax! How far will he get taken in? What will we see of his and Megatron’s old dynamic resurfacing? What will the autobots do without a leader?

(Plus give us a flashback episode to Orion Pax and Megatronus…giving us Prime rendition of Kaon gladiator Megatornus would’ve been sick)

Who knows resolve it in 2 episodes. Or Megatron gets in bumbkebe’s head! How long will he go unnoticed? Will he influence bumble or take him over?

Where is that massive horde of revived cyberton terrorcons from opener five parter? Etc

As a human fan - I’m glad with the stuff we got earlier in the show with the humans and Fowler was great throughout, but was bummed when they largely had nothing to do near the end

I think it was a big misstep to go from such a major peak in season 1 with unicron reveal, that was never topped, to go on a maguffin hunt that largely felt like going through the motions and seperated the cast of characters

Pairing that with killing off promising plot lines like mech, and just not giving more downtime characterization to characters like Optimus , and the lack of a growing or wide roster with fleshed out dynamics just started to dwindle

Tho there were peaks, and I enjoyed smokescreens introduction and when we finally got some climaxes in there they were great! But by the time I finished season 2, I was bummed thinking about the potential plot lines with mech and breakdown we missed out on, and how we didn’t get followup on the human’ life plot lines or downtime characterization for Optimus

When season 3 started I was hoping it’d be a strong ending - and in some ways it was! Don’t get me wrong. And the new character additions were great. But felt like there was too much too late, and hard to balance - and with so many loose threads some were left dangling, and the final battle felt like a redo of a previous final battle climax

And for what it’s worth? I really didn’t care about bumblebee’s voice enough to feel invested when he was the one to beat Megatron. Maybe if they did more with Megatron in bumblebee’s head!

I think the Predacon stuff was cool and the predaking was a cool character and great to see Megatron immedialteu scrambling when he meets someone who he can’t instantly dominate. But thankfully we did have the movie to end things more gracefully - which, resolved some open plot lines, brought back Unicron and gave some proper character conclusions, but still had the dangling thread of Arachnia on the moon with terrorcons and could only do so much to save things

And then in general, character wise - just odd some of the stuff they did. They introduce new characters in season 1 (Wheeljack and Skyquake) for each side, but either bench them or kill them for now - then in season 2, you get Breakdown killed randomly when he still had more payoff you could do with bulkhead and mech. Then you eventually get some cool characters like smokescreen and Dreadwing, but both kinda have messy arcs - smokescreen having the not hot rod arc and stumbling near the end; and Dreadwing having this monumental betrayal of the decepticons … to go back to them and inmediatley be killed

Also the silent characters? Bumblebee I never connected to, soundwave I vibed with cuz he’s soundwave and always doing the most GOATed shit. Love his eventual one liner, but wish he had more like a dark evil ferb lol

I love our core cast but felt like they got neglected late on, their rivalries dwindled, and they didn’t have much to do and don’t have capstones late on

Ultra Magnus and Shcokwave were great inclusions - but wish they were brought in sooner. Would’ve loved things to be shifted down: Smokescreen and Dreadwing in season 1, keep breakdown til end of season 2, and have ultra and shcokwave in early and mid seaosn 2 respectively (can have ultra Magnus come in when Optimus is gone, during the void of leadership)

Optimus, while had the capacity to be my fav, never got there - as we never get to see a more downtime Optimus and his casual dynamics with the humans (despite entrusting Jack the key? Like why bro) and lacks the flaws of the paragon (I mean he goes full kill all decepticons for like 5 seconds but not built up or paid off in any meaningful way). Look, I don’t WANNA be a g1 snob, but Optimus g1 is still my fav - he’s got the paragon stuff, but also plays basketball, has fun and hangs out with the humans; but also chooses Cybertron over earth in ultimate doom, before eventually sacrificing himself in the movie

Prime Megatron is my fav megs tho!

Also - I’m a broken record, but gimme my combinersssssss - I thought prime would’ve been a great chance to have a little larger ensemble of fodder soldiers and flesh out some secondary combiners like The Ariel Bots and Combaticons would’ve been perfect

But it’s just so weird, it goes from an 11/10 and just fumbles so much potential and threads and ideas

But usual caveats - I know hasbro and production screwed a lot, and clearly these are very talented folks, but the end result is what it is and no hate no judgement against the writers and creatives

Before we get into the pros, here are things I would’ve probably tweaked if I got to wave a magic wand and not have to worry about production or making bad story desicions as a byproduct lol, who knows how it would’ve been in practice but these are tweaks i think in a universe similar to ours, could’ve been: basically shuffling around seasons and beats and adding some combiners

Changes

Things would be moved around. It’s wild that the biggest and coolest reveal of earth being unicorn, that massive threat, and the concept of dark energon is used and discarded in season 1 - for the subsequent seasons to largely chase macguffins

I’d move around the seasons that would provide its own shakeups - much of season 2 would be 1, 1 would be the final season and stuff with 3 split across 2 and 3.

Essentially -

- season 1 would be searching for the Iacon relics. Good maguffins to chase in start if show, introduce the fun powers early on and allows for character matchups and adventures. Smokescreen would be introduced at the end of season 1 teasing omega keys.

- Season 2 would be searching for the omega keys, and dealing with Mech, and introducing an expanded cast. Optimus has been taken with a wiped mind as Orion Pax (different reason, but easy enough) and they actually dive into that more. Ultra Magnus arrives when he’s gone, filling the power vaccum. He has some fodder to fill out the Autobot ranks - nameless (maybe one or two named) Arielbots. We have more human episodes, and deal with the middle of the Mech arc a lot better. At the end of the season things are dire - with the near cyber forming of earth, destruction of arielbots and Optimus MIA.

- Season 3 would use the cyber forming as a means to accidentally wake Unicron up, and you’d have the escalation of that plotline serve as the climax of the show. Also utilizes beats from the movie. Megatron betrays Unicron in the end and gains his power, to stand against a final battle of an Optimus 2.0 and Allies. Beats from the movie would be included, such as Galvatron and Megatron really learning to empathize with starscream’s torment

Now to go deeper and more specific, by certain beats:

ORION PAX

We spend multiple episodes with Orion Pax / Megatron, and we more thoroughly explore their history and dynamic, perhaps Megatron trying to steal the matrix.

We basically have the decoding stuff , but apply it to Omega Keys - and the hidden knowledge he Carrie’s from Alpha Trion.

Unified but leaderless, the Autobots are reeling after Optimus’s disappearance and unsure of what to do next. Ultra Magnus arrives with some fodder he gathers to counter the vehicons - a division of arielbots. They’ll be used to beef up the autobots in battles and get killed. Maybe one named Ariel bot!

Things are tense as Ultra Magnus attempts to seize authority, and we get an earlier display of the issues between Ultra Magnus and the wreckers. Hot Rod tries to play the peacemaker between them.

Megatron attempts to steal the matrix from Orion pax, and when he fails he attempts to corrupt him with dark energon.

Orion Pax struggles to fight back, and has to really harness his will - and through a. Cheesy but cool bit he regains his memory when he really dives deep and harnesses his inner goodness - warding off the dark energon and becoming prime again!

When Optimus returns, Ultra Magnus relinquishes command and we have the race for the omega keys - but then Fowler gives news that Mech has made an announcement, that it’s put out a recruitment call.

For the season at large, you’ll have the episodic adventures searching for Omega keys, character dynamics and you’ll have more human plot lines - each human character will have a B or C plot facing their life, as to flesh them out, paralllel the main plot and to flesh out Jasper ahead of its destruction.

MECH

Mech was underutilized in the show and felt like a waste of time. They had a strong beginning, and Silas’s fate was great - but between both them and Breakdown, was rushed and badly done.

I’d utilize Mech as the major antagonist of most season 2 - after Nemeis Prime, having scaled down and built bots on a massive scale for its soldiers to pilot. This allow them to be a third threat, antagonizing autobots and decepticons alike.

We get a sense of their human facing side - where Fowler reveals (through infiltration, assault, etc) that Mech is making power plays against the military , and get a brief conflict there on some sort of army base as we see in a human facing plot in Jasper that a propaganda campaign and conspiracy theories rising against bots are popping up that the kids need to deal with, Mech staring to build itself as a figure against bots.

Their climax is when they assault the decepticons and steal one of the omega keys to study it, to create a weapon that can destroy all the bots and allow them to take over as the dominant power on earth in their place. This is a near end of the season where you’d then have Starscream, Optimus, Cons and Mech each having a key.

Bulkhead and Breakdown team up for this - a mutual alliance, and building upon their past episode together. They hash things out more, and while Breakdown is resigned to being a decepticon, unwilling to change his life - he sacrifices himself to save Bulkhead and destroy Mech, settling the life debt.

But, despite the fierce damage and near total destruction of Mech, things are recovered - headmaster frames are given to Jack, Miko and RAF for them to be more directly involved in plots rather than being benched.

After this, reaching its end near the 2/3 point of season 2, we start turning away to face the rising climaxes of the bot stories

And Silas and few mech soldiers barely survive, recovering Breakdowns corpse and beginning what happens in the original timeline - the end of the season, after being ruined and driven mad - Silas kills the remaining Mech soldiers and tries to ally himself with Megatron, and every thing we normally see with Silas in season 2 happens.

Others:

Black Arachnia dies. Sorry, but she doesn’t play much of a role in s3 so she’d work better as a shocking stakes death paired with character arc finale than being wasted in a jar.

Dreadwing learns that starscream killed his brother, and after everything that happens up to his betrayal like in the show, he turns against the deceptions and becomes a kinda lawful neutral figure through season 3 before going his own way before teaming up with similar scorned Predaking

Season 3

Basically, we have a fusion of s3 and s1 - predacon searching and cyber forming awakens Unicron, who begins to influence Megatron - which at the height of his power is concerning his Allie’s that he might fumble victory.

We get a lot of similar beats, including Predacon stuff and the subsequent betrayal.

At this point, we’ve spent time with Ultra Magnus for a bit and he’s worked out most of his Wreckers stuff so you can expirment pairing him with other characters .

Megatron is feeling more of Unicron’s influence, Dreadwing recruits and teams up with the Predaking over their mutual betrayal by Megatron to take him down.

Nearly defeating Megatron, Megatron takes his last reserve of dark energon - and this time he fully injects it - and Unicron offers him power, and Megatron accepts - and destroys both.

Now devoted to Unicron and his promise of power, Megatron ruffles his base by shifting their priorities exclusively to serving Unicron. Starscream grows increasingly anxious, and eventually betrays Megatron a final time -

Then you get much the same happen as in season 1 - including unicorn scolding Megatron, the betrayal, and Megatron teaming up with Optimus to destroy Unicron. When Unicron is defeated, Megatron takes the pure source of dark energon from his heart and absorbs it - becoming Galvatron, and wards off the autobots. Now that Unicron is dead, the power to wield dark energon is Galvatron’s , who commands his army as a hive mind.

Then we get a ramp up for a final battle, our autobots teaming with their human Allie’s,

Galvatron returns, and destroys Starscream, taking full and complete command of his troops and ship - with the mission to awake cybertorn with dark energon, and cyber form earth.

(NOTE: This piece was written before seeing the movie. I quite like the idea of Megatron growing out of evil after being tortured by Unicorn and seeing its climax, and apologizing to starscream but I feel like the larger story needs to be reworked for that)

So those are the beats I’d do! Obviously messy and not saying they’d be inherently better but some ideas I had! Might have to flesh it out more!

But, cons and revisions aside, here are the PRO PRO PROS

But - we can get into the sweet stuff, the pros!!

Pro

I think most of my pros can be found in season 1 review - as always I don’t want my critiques to overshadow what I love in any way.

I loved watching prime has had some of my favorite stuff in there and some great ideas and consistently great animation , design and direction!

I think the characters are well written and voiced, and there’s a lot of surprisingly stakes and depth to the stories - some particularly surpsing great ones is the absolute horror Silas goes through!

this Megatron is my favorite, a fusion of everything come before - voiced perfectly by the OG and given such perfect lines. I think this starscream gives my beloved g1 starscream a run for his money, but while he doesn’t quite get there in the end is super good and has such peak moments with Megatron

Arcee’s at her best here, taking some prior beats and gives her the cool and rough past from the comics with out going into the edgelord territory, and gives her a nuanced soft side. Bulkhead is great, transformed into a still funny, but more fleshed out character here

The setpieces are consistently great, the battles between Optimus and Megatron are prob the best I’ve seen so far here

The love brought over from the comics is so great to see as someone who fiended through most of it, and the original lore is interesting to see how it pairs with old and new lore

It takes a while, but the special gadgets add a fun and consistent element to fights and action scenes, reminiscent of g1 weird superpowers.

Some ideas I’d never considered are displayed here that I quite like as ideas - beit Megatron directly relating to and apologizing to Starscream because of his own suffering, or Unicron being earth!

I think the original characters are great - (as far as I know maybe they’re from an anime or toy) but Breakdown is cool while we have him, and Knockout is a consistent treat

And smokescreen would’ve been a perfect hot rod 😭

Despite my issues with the plotting - I do think generally went in really interesting and dramatic directions, with moments that had me engaged and pumped flaring up until the end.

As always I love my human characters too! Fowler is the GOAT

but yeah! Overall a super well made show with a lot of creativity and intent mixed in, a lot to love and I see why it’s people’s favorite transformers show

Final thoughts

All in all a show that’s super well made and has a lot of love and passion and has some of my favorite transformers elements on there, beit a specific characterization, piece of lore, story beat, etc. the first season is peak transformers , and rides well into mid season 2 where I feel it falters and loses steam

There are things throughout the show I find to be odd desicions on such a great foundation, and after it peaks in season 1 it never really has anything else to rise to that level or do with its characters

Tbh, I think Transformers Prime as Two seasons and a high produced movie would’ve been the best route to go, cut some fat, tighten it up add some things and shuffle things around and end with a high end banger

That being said, I don’t want it to seem like I don’t appreciate transformers prime - I really really like the show, and as far as transformers shows it’s one of the best! And it has some of my favorite elements - favorite Megatron for one

But unfortuantley as is the trend with transformers media - studio meddling, cut budgets, rushed deadlines, and toy blacklists hamstrung some of what it could’ve grown into - hopefully one day such a show can be made in peace

Transformers Prime is super great and a fun time and I’m glad I watched it! And definitley see why it’s one of the most formative transformers shows

I’ve since read more and watched more transformers - including the Netflix trilogy I should post about (overall liked it a lot! With caveats.) and the great transformers one

I’m looking forward to the next several months - where I’ll slowly begin the more modern transformers shows, and then get into the vast world of transformers anime and manga!

[captaingimpy]

Transformers One (2024) Review: A New Generation's Origin Story

Transformers One isn’t just another addition to the franchise’s sprawling universe—it’s a quieter, more reflective exploration of identity, leadership, and the weight of choices made in moments of crisis. Directed by Josh Cooley, the film revisits the origins of two iconic characters, Optimus Prime and Megatron, before they became symbols of their respective factions. It’s a story of friendship…

Transformers One (2024) Review: A New Generation's Origin Story

[moviepixie]

Transformers Rise Of The Autobots

Subtitle: My new favourite transformer

This movie contains slight cussing and suggestive jokes. Parental guidance may be advised but I don't think it's necessary.

******************************************************************

Now I want to start off by saying that to me this is not the best transformers in terms of action. But it does contain a decent amount of action.

That being said, this is one of my favourite transformers in existence. This movie's concept is a bit different from the others. The main plot of the movie is that the cybatronian war took place and Optimus orders that the Autobots regroup on earth. This has caused the Autobots to become stranded on the planet for the last 7 years. Now out of nowhere, a strange stone(forgot the name) that acts like a key to open portals anywhere in the universe appears. The Autobots see this as their only way of going home and they try to acquire the key from the museum with the help of a human named Noah.

The name of the enemies in this movie is not the Decepticons but rather The Terrorcons who serve Unicron and are trying to acquire the key so that it may aid Unicron in the consumption of more worlds.

Now as interesting as that sounds, I wouldn't really hype this movie in terms of action. Why I say this because I am a huge Optimus enthusiast and in this movie, Optimus is easily beaten and is cold towards humans. Sure the movie has an explanation for it but I don't really enjoy the way he was thrown around. That being said his attitude as well wasn't likeable. His design in the movie is also different from Bayverse much to my dislike.

I prefer the Bayverse designs of Optimus and bumble bee because of the details that go into their designs. In this movie, Optimus wasn't my type of character at all and it sort of made me upset. But the creators of the movie revived my heart with Mirage.

Mirage has to be one of the best characters that Transformers has ever created and is one of the main reasons I watched the movie. he has this sense of comedy that speaks out to me and was more of the comic relief of the movie. He easily became likeable and was more of the star of the movie than the other Autobots and topped even Noah in terms of likability according to me.

After being bombarded with Mirage edits on TikTok, I decided to watch the movie! I personally enjoyed the movie because it was a balance of comedy and action. I would also recommend this movie to my friends and family as well as strangers on the internet who love to laugh as well as watch good fight scenes.

The soundtrack as well was top-tier for music lovers. I would rate this movie a 7/10 for you guys but a 9/10 personally because I would definitely watch it again.

[plasticsparkphotos]

Fans Hobby MB-17 Meg-Tyranno (Robot Mode) Written article and full gallery here: http://plasticspark.ca/toyphotos/mb17megtyrannorev

[earthstellar]

Rewatching Transformers G1 S2: Episode 1: Autobot Spike

Yes, this is where the Surprised Ratchet meme image comes from:

This episode has a lot going on including near-death of a human character on screen, body horror/a Frankenstein plot, and some genuinely unsettling scenes mostly made creepy due to the combination of some interesting dialogue/voice acting and typical G1 Quality. 

And Spike shoots Starscream in the ass mid-flight, which is fantastic. 

He also shoots his dad, which is less fantastic. 

Being a horror nerd, I love this episode, so here we go! 

Gonna put this below a cut because I’m taking a lot of screenshots here:

You can watch the whole episode on YouTube here in 4 parts, if you want to watch along! 

Alright, so it opens with Sparkplug trying to create “Autobot X”, which is straight up just a Frankenstein’s Monster of autobot parts. It’s weirdly creepy, and vaguely reminiscent of the infamous Ratchet-Megatron fusion in the Marvel comics.

I want to point out that Sparkplug says “I wanna see what I can do with a lotta spare Autobot parts and some human ingenuity” before the reveal shot above, and that’s horrific if you think about it for more than like, three seconds. 

It also may have been the origins of the MECH plot line in TFP, actually! Very similar body horror type thing going on. Anyway.

It works briefly, but it flips out and has to get shut down. 

Ironhide fires a laser, problem solved, nobody’s worried. They put Autobot X in storage, because surely a rampantly aggressive seemingly sentient pastiche of random Autobot parts is nothing to worry about. It’s fine. 

Wheeljack is like, hell yeah, I’ll help you work on it later. Which is when we get the Surprised Ratchet image, because yeah, I bet Ratchet’s freaked out a little since this thing is made of SPARE AUTOBOT PARTS. 

Then we’re swept immediately into a fight with Megatron, as many Seekers as you can fit in frame at one time, and Soundwave. 

For whatever reason, Bumblebee shows up driving through a bunch of partially blown up missile/rocket components, with Spike in the driver’s seat. Even Spike is like, dude, why are we here? And Bumblebee is just like, I mean, we couldn’t NOT show up. lmao

Unsurprisingly, Bumblebee gets shot-- In alt-mode, with Spike inside. Uh oh. 

Megatron leaves, because Frank Welker can only voice so many characters at once, and our attention is turned to the carnage. 

Ratchet is like, sure, I can fix Bumblebee right up! Meanwhile, Ironhide is like oh god, oh my god, is this how you hold a human??? Is it dead??? Optimus is gonna be pissed. 

So Optimus rolls up like, listen, take him to the hospital, come on. Ratchet lets him in the back of his ambulance mode, and Prowl goes with him so that he can throw his emergency lights on to give the illusion of a police escort, ensuring the drive is even quicker. 

(I miss the days when Prowl wasn’t a total asshole.) 

It cuts pretty quickly to Spike in an operating theatre; Apparently getting shot by alien space lasers isn’t conducive to human health: 

It cuts again to the attending physician standing at Spike’s beside, presumably in ICU although they appear to be in a private room, with Sparkplug on the other side of the bed. 

The doctor says “Hmm, if only there were a way of separating Spike’s mind from his body while we work...” Which, uh, what? What surgeon says that? You can sort of already do that in actual human medicine, it’s called an induced coma. 

But sure, we need exposition here, I get it. The screenplay here is tight. Sparkplug says he has an idea...

Back at the Autobot hangout, things seem fairly chill, considering. 

Ratchet is welding Bumblebee’s ass in alt-mode, while Bumblebee complains about how long it’s taking. lol 

Meanwhile, Wheeljack and Sparkplug somehow have Spike hooked up to a Ghostbusters colander helmet, which will hopefully transfer his mind into the malfunctioning/in stasis Autobot X frame. Yikes. 

It works! Spike is now also Autobot X. We will call him Spike X for short. 

And for some reason, Spike saying “D-Da-ad?” with this faceplate expression is incredibly funny to me, while also being really weird and creepy: 

However, this is only cool for like two seconds, at which point Spike X truly starts to lose his shit. 

It gets real creepy here, with Spike X saying in a very oddly flat inflection “Why? Why did you do this to me? Why?” and it’s pretty wild. There’s even a mild strobe effect for a few frames. 

Sideswipe and Sunstreaker try to help calm him down, but Spike X throws them both across the room. 

Optimus is like, oh shit, we made a giant metal teenager. Stop him, but use low power, because if the Autobot X frame is damaged too much, then Spike’s consciousness may not be able to be returned to his actual human body. 

Note that Optimus says this in a pretty relaxed way, then levels a shoulder mounted cannon straight at Spike X, which is incredibly funny. 

It quickly gets deeply weird and creepy again when Spike X is temporarily able to talk with his dad, and states that “it’s hard to think, like something is telling me to do... bad.... things!” Yiiiiiikes. 

He gets it under control again, apologises to his dad for the outburst (I think it’s OK, Spike), and Optimus says that he’s cool to stay at the base and he’ll be taken care of while his human body heals up. 

However, oh shit, the Decepticons have found out that Spike now has an Autobot frame-- And they know he’s unstable. 

Starscream tries to roast him, but Megatron’s like, shut up nerd, we’re gonna make Spike X turn against the Autobots! It’s a good plan, I’m serious! 

Back at the Autobot base, Ratchet is still welding Bumblebee’s ass, and Bumblebee is still complaining. Wheeljack hooks up Spike X with some network television, and he’s watching... Frankenstein. Because the six year old kids who are the intended audience of G1 may not be familiar with the source material for this episode’s plot, I guess, which is fair. (Frank Welker nails it here as Dr. Frankenstein, but that’s unsurprising, because he always nails it. I think he’s also voicing Frankenstein’s Monster, but I haven’t checked the credits.)

Obviously, this isn’t a great thing for Spike X to be watching at this particular moment, so he freaks out again. 

Wheeljack and Sparkplug come running, and somehow Sparkplug is covering ground faster than Wheeljack. It’s fine, don’t worry about it. 

Ratchet’s progress on welding Bumblebee’s ass is interrupted by Spike X breaking through the wall and seemingly flying away. lmao 

They just sort of stand there, like, well, we lost him, I guess. 

Bumblebee is like, alright, gonna go get my boy. 

So he drives out of this massive crater, and Ratchet is like, wait! Your radio transmitter still doesn’t work. (Apparently their radio transmitters are located in their asses. Fascinating.) 

Spike X sits on a cliff and says “what a drag”, which, yeah. Being a Frankenstein space robot would be cool if not for the immense psychological damage this is absolutely causing. 

However, he also calls himself a “walking garbage can” in a completely genuine put-out tone of voice, which absolutely sells that this is a teenager in a giant robot body and I laughed, I won’t lie. 

Some of Megatron’s cronies locate him and hold his position. 

At the same time, Bumblebee shows up and tries to talk Spike X down from a random destructive rampage. 

He throws Bumblebee off the cliff! And Megatron’s squad is rolling up. (Well, flying up, anyway.) Uh oh! 

Spike X is like, hell yeah, bring it. More ass to kick. And it turns out his arm mounted cannon works, because he shoots Starscream directly in the undercarriage and says “YEAH, MAN!” and it’s so genuine. 

This is the perfect reaction to being a teenager in a giant robot body and just suddenly being able to shoot lasers and kick ass. Look at how happy he is, that he just shot Starscream in the butt mid-air. It’s awesome.

Unfortunately, the Seekers do actually beat him up, although Spike X puts up a good fight. 

Megatron then takes advantage of his further weakened state, and swoops in to pitch a classic “Join Us” speech. Spike X calls him “Megacrumb”, which is probably acceptable because he’s absolutely concussed by this point. 

Megatron is willing to overlook this for the sake of teaming up. 

Bumblebee eavesdrops, and drives away-- But Spike X gives Megatron a handshake, and agrees to “make them pay”. Oh shit! 

For some reason, Optimus and Ironhide are back at the rocket facility to watch a launch. Because I guess whatever, this whole situation is chill, let’s go watch rockets? IDK 

But either way, Optimus roasts the inferior quality of human technology, while Bumblebee just drives up on site despite Military Police levelling sniper rifles at him in order to report that Megatron is taking advantage of Spike X’s inability to think clearly. 

Optimus says “I feared something like this might happen”, which, if that were the case, why not take actions to prevent it, maybe? Not the strongest Optimus episode. 

To be fair though, Ironhide transforms and is already driving off before Optimus even gives the order to roll out, so I guess Ironhide either really wants to kick some ass or cares slightly more about Spike X’s wellbeing. He has no dialogue here, so we can only guess. 

They get there, with even more Autobots who showed up at some point in the rapid scene cuts here, and Spike X is super unhinged-- Charging his weapons, he starts speaking in a more strained and angry way, and engages the Autobots! 

He hits Optimus with what appears to be a chest laser? It’s hard to see. But it’s super effective: 

Optimus pleads with Spike X to calm down, but Spike X straight up pulls MEGATRON IN GUN MODE out of his sub-space and shoots Optimus directly in the faceplate. Damn! 

The Seekers and Soundwave drop in, and start rapid firing on all the Autobots present. 

We get some great shots of Megatron in his gun alt-mode as he tries to convince Spike X to keep attacking. Optimus and Bumblebee hide behind cover, attempting to bring Spike X to his senses long enough to disarm him. 

Suddenly, Wheeljack and Sparkplug roll up; Sparkplug attempts to talk some sense into Spike, too. 

Optimus and Bumblebee are at a loss; If they take out Spike X, the damage might take him out for good. 

However, Sparkplug fails in his efforts to talk to Spike X; He SHOOTS HIS DAD AND KNOCKS HIM OFF THE CLIFF. 

Can you imagine if they put an ad break here? lmao 

Luckily, he has like, a claw machine arm, and he catches his dad before he becomes a human smoothie. 

This shocks Spike X badly enough that while he still has Megatron in gun mode, he takes a few pot shots at the Seekers and the Decepticons decide it’s time to bounce, so Megatron bails too. 

He apologises for almost killing his dad, his dad is like hey no beef man, and it cuts to them in the hospital: 

Sparkplug takes his son’s body back to the Autobot base (that sounds worse than it is), and they prepare to transfer him back into his body. 

What’s extra funny here is that he nervously laughs and says “Hope you fixed this thing up good, Ratchet!” And Ratchet says absolutely nothing. Not a word. 

It’s a success! Dad and son hug, totally not even addressing anything that happened this whole episode, because that’s a job for a therapist. 

Ratchet, who continues to not really care about any of this, tells Wheeljack “You know, I could probably repair that mess, but I think it’s best that I don’t.” (This is a play on what Wheeljack said earlier in the episode when he offered to help Sparkplug fix up Autobot X to begin with.) 

I love how tired Wheeljack looks. LOL

Spike, now recovered, leaves us with a great question to close out the episode: “I wonder what it’d be like for a robot mind to be transferred... to a human!” 

Depending on what kind of kid you were, his question was either imagination fuel for fun humanformer ideas, or was a blatantly bad question indicating he learned nothing and providing nightmare fuel trying to imagine one of the Autobots losing their shit in a human body the same way Spike lost his shit while inhabiting Autobot X. 

Anyway, great episode! 10/10 Scary, funny, creepy, Starscream got shot in the ass by a teenager.