Transformers: Prime Endnotes
Jun. 7th, 2015 09:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andrasteSo, finally finished Transformers: Prime! It doesn't edge out Animated as my favourite iteration, but it was pretty great.
Unfortunately, I think I would have preferred the ending we got in the last episode of Season Three to the one presented by the movie :(. There are a few reasons for that.
It's partly because Bumblebee started to annoy me the second he began talking, and because they wrote Ultra Magnus out of the fight so unceremoniously. (Actually, the way they handled his character in general was one of the few things I didn't like about Season Three.) Also because Optiumus Prime's death felt like they were just going through the motions of G1. But it's mostly because Starscream's greatest ever character arc ended with his worst death scene ever. And I mean worst as in 'least meaningful and interesting'.
My problem isn't that he died - that's what Starscreams do! It's that they missed two perfect opportunities to kill him in an appropriate way and left it to Predaking. Sure, Predaking has reason to be mad at Starscream - but no more reason than he has to be mad at Megatron, Shockwave, Knock Out or the entire company of Autobots.
I also don't feel like a character who's only been around one season has earned the right to kill Starscream on a narrative level. It would have been so much better if they'd had Knock Out kill him during the betrayal scene, or Megatron do it when he declares the Decepticons disbanded. (Perhaps better still if they'd let Arcee kill him in revenge for Cliffjumper, but that would probably have been too dark for the show, especially during the finale.)
And because the writers were clearly hedging their bets in case they wanted to bring him back later, we don't even get to see it on screen! Nothing to match Galvatron destroying him in G1, or Armada!Scream's sacrifice, or Animated!Scream losing his fragment of Allspark.
It's doubly frustrating because I like where Megatron and Knock Out ended up so much. Megaton giving up his cause at last was genuinely moving, and I love the idea of Knock Out defecting. (We don't really find out what happens with Shock Wave, though maybe he gets a pardon too. I guess poor Soundwave is still stuck between dimensions? Someone should really let him out.)
So I guess I'm going to choose to ignore Word Of God and believe that Predaking beat him up and returned him to the Autobots for imprisonment. (From which he will promptly escape, because Starscream.) Or maybe he really is dead, and his ghost is going to spend eternity annoying Megatron and/or Knock Outin a sexy way.
Unfortunately, I think I would have preferred the ending we got in the last episode of Season Three to the one presented by the movie :(. There are a few reasons for that.
It's partly because Bumblebee started to annoy me the second he began talking, and because they wrote Ultra Magnus out of the fight so unceremoniously. (Actually, the way they handled his character in general was one of the few things I didn't like about Season Three.) Also because Optiumus Prime's death felt like they were just going through the motions of G1. But it's mostly because Starscream's greatest ever character arc ended with his worst death scene ever. And I mean worst as in 'least meaningful and interesting'.
My problem isn't that he died - that's what Starscreams do! It's that they missed two perfect opportunities to kill him in an appropriate way and left it to Predaking. Sure, Predaking has reason to be mad at Starscream - but no more reason than he has to be mad at Megatron, Shockwave, Knock Out or the entire company of Autobots.
I also don't feel like a character who's only been around one season has earned the right to kill Starscream on a narrative level. It would have been so much better if they'd had Knock Out kill him during the betrayal scene, or Megatron do it when he declares the Decepticons disbanded. (Perhaps better still if they'd let Arcee kill him in revenge for Cliffjumper, but that would probably have been too dark for the show, especially during the finale.)
And because the writers were clearly hedging their bets in case they wanted to bring him back later, we don't even get to see it on screen! Nothing to match Galvatron destroying him in G1, or Armada!Scream's sacrifice, or Animated!Scream losing his fragment of Allspark.
It's doubly frustrating because I like where Megatron and Knock Out ended up so much. Megaton giving up his cause at last was genuinely moving, and I love the idea of Knock Out defecting. (We don't really find out what happens with Shock Wave, though maybe he gets a pardon too. I guess poor Soundwave is still stuck between dimensions? Someone should really let him out.)
So I guess I'm going to choose to ignore Word Of God and believe that Predaking beat him up and returned him to the Autobots for imprisonment. (From which he will promptly escape, because Starscream.) Or maybe he really is dead, and his ghost is going to spend eternity annoying Megatron and/or Knock Out