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Description

Transformers: Energon (2004)
Episodes: 52
Network: Cartoon Network

In the year following the conclusion of Transformers: Armada, a sequel series was immediately put into production, dubbed from its original version, SuperLink, and released as the middle chapter of the Unicron Trilogy, Transformers: Energon, which has since over the years has become widely regarded as one of the worst Transformers shows, if not the worst, by Armada fans and the most hated among Transformers fans in general.

And while I don't think its absolute garbage or as miserably awful as many hyperbolize, I can't deny that Energon is quite the mess of a series, especially compared to what came before.

But before we get into the laundry list of problems with Energon, let's discuss a handful of positives I have for this show.....

Positives:

The initial setup itself as a followup to Armada is honestly not too bad of an idea for a continuation with the Autobots having formed an alliance with the humans of Earth and having to face the Decepticons with Megatron back from the dead and wanting to steal a Transformers power source energon to resurrect Unicron, and there also being some third party involved. While the execution and dubbing completely squander the potential of that initial premise, that as a concept is a good idea for a sequel to Armada.

While most of the new characters are not all that great or memorable, there are a handful of interesting new characters that stand out.

The first being Alpha Quintesson, or Alpha Q, the first ever Quintesson in the franchise since G1. As a character, he starts off as somewhat of a new main villain with his army Terracons and trying to steal the Autobot's energon to revive Unicron but once Megatron takes over the operation, Alpha Q is then a more neutral presence and we later come to learn that he was a sole survivor of a planet Unicron destroyed and his motive for wanting to revive Unicron was so he could restore his destroyed home and because of this revelation, he becomes an ally to the good guys from that point all the way to his fate. He's a very multi-layered and tragic character whose background I found very interesting and one of the few highlights of the show.

Other characters like one of the main Autobots, Inferno, and Alpha Q's disciple and lieutenant Scorponok and a few others are cool new characters as well and have some moments of engaging character arcs despite some issues we will get into.

Despite the animation being one of the show's biggest detriments for the reason I will discuss shortly, whenever the scenes or action moments with the Transformers are hand drawn 2D, those are where the show shines visually and on their own, they look beautifully drawn and are just as beautifully animated and really add a lot to the mood or action of the moment in ways that the 3D animation can't, and makes me wish the show was predominantly 2D as that's when the show looks the best by a landslide.

Mixed:

The soundtrack on its own is very good and well composed for the intended mood of a moment. My favorite being To Connect Hearts for its soft and serene flute notes. The flip side to it is that the show has a habit of using certain music at inappropriate moments that do not feel like they go together and could come off as distracting when for example, some uplifting heroic music is playing during a dark and somber moment that just take you out of the experience.

Even though this show is full of many problems that we will discuss shortly, there are some times where the show can provide some unintentionally funny moments or is so stupid at times that it barely crosses the line of being so bad, its hilarious, being some of the over the top line delivery or anything they show or feature regarding the characters and visuals, or a momentary bit of anime silliness that can occasionally make me smirk at the sheer hilarity and ridiculousness on display and can make for an entertaining watch with some friends and just have fun roasting it.

Just like Armada, I love the returning voice actors involved as well as the new ones like Brad Swaile, best known as Light in the Death Note anime, and I do think the voice cast is very capable and do the best with what they are given, notably Garry Chalk, David Kaye, Scott McNeill and a few others, but the dubbing of the show hinders a lot of their prowess as VAs, but its a bit worse as the dubbing here is even more broken than before.

Negatives:

And part of the reason why the dubbing is much worse is that this series was quite literally rushed into production exactly a month after Armada ended, so what we're left with is a messy dub that is incoherent and inconsistent from the original version, with problems like characters saying something nonsensical than originally that does not flow with what's happening with some of the VAs sounding mildly confused, character names being mixed up, added dialogue in scenes that featured little to none, and the list goes on. The whole dub is an absolutely incompetent rushed mess from top to bottom.

Beyond the dubbing, there are so many other problems, starting off small, the visuals outside of the 2D animation look absolutely rough....

Or as the folks at WatchMojo say, "stunning visuals," which is nothing short of hilarious as the only stunning thing about the visuals are how bad they look.

Energon attempted to do something visually different by combining the 2D animation with very cheap and stiff looking 3D models for the Transformers characters with the humans still being 2D. To put it nicely, the visuals have not aged well and it wasn't even good the first time. Not only does the 3D and 2D clash when together or sharing the same space but the 3D models of the Autobots and Decepticons are very stiff and lifeless, both in terms of movement and expression. They move so awkward and clunky and despite some having some cool designs, they just look like 3D models of their actual toys with very limited ranges of motion, which makes some of the action awkward and have no weight as well as during the action scenes, the show always uses very cheap looking explosion effects and an abundance of overused stock transformations, which take away from the engagement these action moments could have had. Beyond that, they are even more limited in terms of facial expressions or showing emotion beyond just opening and closing their mouths, which makes a lot of the emotional moments the show attempts feel empty and weak. The 3D animation is so bad that even the animators know it and would result to using the 2D animation for certain scenes which like I said look infinitely superior and would have been a major help for the show if they had it be entirely animated in that style.

Whereas Armada started off decent enough and got better as it progressed and its story unfolded, Energon has the opposite effect in that its overarching story is not long enough for a 52 episode length and yet is clearly and arbitrarily stretched out to reach that quota. To give context, the main story involves the Decepticons stealing energon to revive Unicron which is achieved surprisingly early on, is temporarily concluded, accomplished again with Unicorn being fully restored in the midst of the show, and gets ultimately destroyed by Optimus, but there is still 13 episodes of story left so the show just makes up a new plot for the remaining half, and a handful of filler episodes in between. The plot of the show is all over the place and meanders in parts to where the whole story of the show has no consistent flow or enough material for that length and would have been better if most of its filler and fat was trimmed to a more tighter length that would have felt less dragged out.

My biggest gripe with the show are the characters and how they are mishandled and received major regression in their development or their arcs are interesting at first but are quickly diminished or forgotten about.

First, Demolishor has an interesting character struggle of going back to being on the Decepticons side from previously starting off on the Autobots' side at the start of the show, getting killed to protect Megatron and then resurrected in a new body and having amnesia and from that point on being reduced to an annoying comic relief who bangs on his chest like a roided up gorilla alongside Cyclonus who also gets reformatted as Snowcat who is just a yodeling buffoon.

Secondly, Inferno, one of the new additions to the Autobot team, has a very good three episode arc where he gets tortured by Megatron who then inserts a virus into his programming that makes him turn into a Decepticon and his struggle to fight the programming leads to him heroically sacrificing himself...only to be brought back as Roadblock and then does nothing for the rest of the show, making his return entirely pointless.

Thirdly, Scorponok starts off as being fiercely loyal to Alpha Q, dies protecting him at the hands of Megatron, gets revived but now as a Decepticon loyal to Megatron and forms a rivalry with Ironhide and doesn't get a clear resolution to his arc and is underdeveloped, due to the fact that the dub for whatever reason, nixed an episode from the original SuperLink version that focused on Scorponok's past and the start of his and Ironhide's rivalry, leaving a gaping hole in his character arc.

But the worst one is Starscream, one of the breakout characters from Armada with the best character arc, who is brought back from the dead by Alpha Q as a ghostly assassin with amnesia but is then brainwashed by Megatron and from that point is just a lifeless servant to Megatron, which does an absolute disservice to his character from Armada and is one of the worst cases of character assassination I've seen. And made even worse by the fact that none of the Autobots recognized him whatsoever like they all gained amnesia and Alexis, the human he had a bond with previously, is barely featured in the show and the two never came upon each other. It was an absolute missed opportunity that could've lead to something interesting and could've justified his revival. Nope, instead what this show did to Starscream is inexcusable and destroyed one of the best things in Armada and that is like the worst thing a bad sequel can do is not only be inferior, but screw with a better show.

Beyond that, certain characters from Armada such as Red Alert or Blurr or Hoist are nowhere to be seen and aside from a few standouts here and there, the new characters don't fair much better either.

Ironhide, who is the new young Autobot of the main team and the one who gets the most screen time, is an even worse and more annoying and irresponsible version of Hot Shot from Armada, who is now much older and mature and ironically is one of the few alongside Optimus who get tired of his rookie shtick.

Not helping his case is his partner and the show's new human lead, Kicker Jones. Of all the human characters in Transformers media, Kicker is one of the more irritating and unlikable ones, due to his over the top angsty and irritable attitude problem that is also very inconsistent in that one moment he's angry at someone or something and kicking Ironhide and the next he's cool with them as a team, as well as also being quick to rush into action without thinking and getting into trouble despite being ordered not to do and his annoying overuse of saying, "Give me a break". He had potential especially with his newfound ability to sense energon or danger and how he actually is capable of fighting in battle, but that former element of his is barely utilized and as a whole, he's one of the least likeable human characters in a Transformers show and could've been so much more.

Outside of those notable members of the cast, most of the other Bots and Cons in the show range from okay to forgettable, with select few that hold their own and stand out in a good way or as I previously mentioned are either mishandled or wasted.

Standout Episodes:
+ Megatron Resurrected
+ Battle of the Asteroid Belt
+ Protection
+ Imprisoned Inferno
+ Farewell Inferno
+ Shockblast: Rampage
+ The Power
+ Optimus Supreme
+ Spark
+ The Sun
= Unicron Perishes
- The Legend of Rodimus
- The Return of Demolishor
- Crash Course
- Team Optimus Prime
- Ambition
- Distribution

Final Thoughts:

Okay, I think I've slammed this show long enough.

Transformers: Energon is not the worst show I've ever seen. There are much worse shows than this one that are way more offensive and grating on my nerves than this show ever got even in its worst moments, but even with that being said, Energon is definitely the worst of the Unicorn Trilogy and a very disappointing and poor followup to Armada. While I do think it is somewhat over hated and over hyped as an absolute dumpster fire of a Transformers series and even though I do think it has a handful of redeeming qualities that aren't given enough credit, it still is a pretty bad show at the end of the day and one of the weaker Transformers shows that I wouldn't recommend and would instead recommend my own rewrite of the show I wrote way back in my high school days if you want a version that's at least better than what we're stuck with, which while certainly near the bottom as far as Transformers shows go is a show that I would be lying if I said wasn't one I felt had potential to be something more.

4/10

What do you think of Transformers: Energon?

Description

Transformers: Energon (2004)
Episodes: 52
Network: Cartoon Network

In the year following the conclusion of Transformers: Armada, a sequel series was immediately put into production, dubbed from its original version, SuperLink, and released as the middle chapter of the Unicron Trilogy, Transformers: Energon, which has since over the years has become widely regarded as one of the worst Transformers shows, if not the worst, by Armada fans and the most hated among Transformers fans in general.

And while I don't think its absolute garbage or as miserably awful as many hyperbolize, I can't deny that Energon is quite the mess of a series, especially compared to what came before.

But before we get into the laundry list of problems with Energon, let's discuss a handful of positives I have for this show.....

Positives:

The initial setup itself as a followup to Armada is honestly not too bad of an idea for a continuation with the Autobots having formed an alliance with the humans of Earth and having to face the Decepticons with Megatron back from the dead and wanting to steal a Transformers power source energon to resurrect Unicron, and there also being some third party involved. While the execution and dubbing completely squander the potential of that initial premise, that as a concept is a good idea for a sequel to Armada.

While most of the new characters are not all that great or memorable, there are a handful of interesting new characters that stand out.

The first being Alpha Quintesson, or Alpha Q, the first ever Quintesson in the franchise since G1. As a character, he starts off as somewhat of a new main villain with his army Terracons and trying to steal the Autobot's energon to revive Unicron but once Megatron takes over the operation, Alpha Q is then a more neutral presence and we later come to learn that he was a sole survivor of a planet Unicron destroyed and his motive for wanting to revive Unicron was so he could restore his destroyed home and because of this revelation, he becomes an ally to the good guys from that point all the way to his fate. He's a very multi-layered and tragic character whose background I found very interesting and one of the few highlights of the show.

Other characters like one of the main Autobots, Inferno, and Alpha Q's disciple and lieutenant Scorponok and a few others are cool new characters as well and have some moments of engaging character arcs despite some issues we will get into.

Despite the animation being one of the show's biggest detriments for the reason I will discuss shortly, whenever the scenes or action moments with the Transformers are hand drawn 2D, those are where the show shines visually and on their own, they look beautifully drawn and are just as beautifully animated and really add a lot to the mood or action of the moment in ways that the 3D animation can't, and makes me wish the show was predominantly 2D as that's when the show looks the best by a landslide.

Mixed:

The soundtrack on its own is very good and well composed for the intended mood of a moment. My favorite being To Connect Hearts for its soft and serene flute notes. The flip side to it is that the show has a habit of using certain music at inappropriate moments that do not feel like they go together and could come off as distracting when for example, some uplifting heroic music is playing during a dark and somber moment that just take you out of the experience.

Even though this show is full of many problems that we will discuss shortly, there are some times where the show can provide some unintentionally funny moments or is so stupid at times that it barely crosses the line of being so bad, its hilarious, being some of the over the top line delivery or anything they show or feature regarding the characters and visuals, or a momentary bit of anime silliness that can occasionally make me smirk at the sheer hilarity and ridiculousness on display and can make for an entertaining watch with some friends and just have fun roasting it.

Just like Armada, I love the returning voice actors involved as well as the new ones like Brad Swaile, best known as Light in the Death Note anime, and I do think the voice cast is very capable and do the best with what they are given, notably Garry Chalk, David Kaye, Scott McNeill and a few others, but the dubbing of the show hinders a lot of their prowess as VAs, but its a bit worse as the dubbing here is even more broken than before.

Negatives:

And part of the reason why the dubbing is much worse is that this series was quite literally rushed into production exactly a month after Armada ended, so what we're left with is a messy dub that is incoherent and inconsistent from the original version, with problems like characters saying something nonsensical than originally that does not flow with what's happening with some of the VAs sounding mildly confused, character names being mixed up, added dialogue in scenes that featured little to none, and the list goes on. The whole dub is an absolutely incompetent rushed mess from top to bottom.

Beyond the dubbing, there are so many other problems, starting off small, the visuals outside of the 2D animation look absolutely rough....

Or as the folks at WatchMojo say, "stunning visuals," which is nothing short of hilarious as the only stunning thing about the visuals are how bad they look.

Energon attempted to do something visually different by combining the 2D animation with very cheap and stiff looking 3D models for the Transformers characters with the humans still being 2D. To put it nicely, the visuals have not aged well and it wasn't even good the first time. Not only does the 3D and 2D clash when together or sharing the same space but the 3D models of the Autobots and Decepticons are very stiff and lifeless, both in terms of movement and expression. They move so awkward and clunky and despite some having some cool designs, they just look like 3D models of their actual toys with very limited ranges of motion, which makes some of the action awkward and have no weight as well as during the action scenes, the show always uses very cheap looking explosion effects and an abundance of overused stock transformations, which take away from the engagement these action moments could have had. Beyond that, they are even more limited in terms of facial expressions or showing emotion beyond just opening and closing their mouths, which makes a lot of the emotional moments the show attempts feel empty and weak. The 3D animation is so bad that even the animators know it and would result to using the 2D animation for certain scenes which like I said look infinitely superior and would have been a major help for the show if they had it be entirely animated in that style.

Whereas Armada started off decent enough and got better as it progressed and its story unfolded, Energon has the opposite effect in that its overarching story is not long enough for a 52 episode length and yet is clearly and arbitrarily stretched out to reach that quota. To give context, the main story involves the Decepticons stealing energon to revive Unicron which is achieved surprisingly early on, is temporarily concluded, accomplished again with Unicorn being fully restored in the midst of the show, and gets ultimately destroyed by Optimus, but there is still 13 episodes of story left so the show just makes up a new plot for the remaining half, and a handful of filler episodes in between. The plot of the show is all over the place and meanders in parts to where the whole story of the show has no consistent flow or enough material for that length and would have been better if most of its filler and fat was trimmed to a more tighter length that would have felt less dragged out.

My biggest gripe with the show are the characters and how they are mishandled and received major regression in their development or their arcs are interesting at first but are quickly diminished or forgotten about.

First, Demolishor has an interesting character struggle of going back to being on the Decepticons side from previously starting off on the Autobots' side at the start of the show, getting killed to protect Megatron and then resurrected in a new body and having amnesia and from that point on being reduced to an annoying comic relief who bangs on his chest like a roided up gorilla alongside Cyclonus who also gets reformatted as Snowcat who is just a yodeling buffoon.

Secondly, Inferno, one of the new additions to the Autobot team, has a very good three episode arc where he gets tortured by Megatron who then inserts a virus into his programming that makes him turn into a Decepticon and his struggle to fight the programming leads to him heroically sacrificing himself...only to be brought back as Roadblock and then does nothing for the rest of the show, making his return entirely pointless.

Thirdly, Scorponok starts off as being fiercely loyal to Alpha Q, dies protecting him at the hands of Megatron, gets revived but now as a Decepticon loyal to Megatron and forms a rivalry with Ironhide and doesn't get a clear resolution to his arc and is underdeveloped, due to the fact that the dub for whatever reason, nixed an episode from the original SuperLink version that focused on Scorponok's past and the start of his and Ironhide's rivalry, leaving a gaping hole in his character arc.

But the worst one is Starscream, one of the breakout characters from Armada with the best character arc, who is brought back from the dead by Alpha Q as a ghostly assassin with amnesia but is then brainwashed by Megatron and from that point is just a lifeless servant to Megatron, which does an absolute disservice to his character from Armada and is one of the worst cases of character assassination I've seen. And made even worse by the fact that none of the Autobots recognized him whatsoever like they all gained amnesia and Alexis, the human he had a bond with previously, is barely featured in the show and the two never came upon each other. It was an absolute missed opportunity that could've lead to something interesting and could've justified his revival. Nope, instead what this show did to Starscream is inexcusable and destroyed one of the best things in Armada and that is like the worst thing a bad sequel can do is not only be inferior, but screw with a better show.

Beyond that, certain characters from Armada such as Red Alert or Blurr or Hoist are nowhere to be seen and aside from a few standouts here and there, the new characters don't fair much better either.

Ironhide, who is the new young Autobot of the main team and the one who gets the most screen time, is an even worse and more annoying and irresponsible version of Hot Shot from Armada, who is now much older and mature and ironically is one of the few alongside Optimus who get tired of his rookie shtick.

Not helping his case is his partner and the show's new human lead, Kicker Jones. Of all the human characters in Transformers media, Kicker is one of the more irritating and unlikable ones, due to his over the top angsty and irritable attitude problem that is also very inconsistent in that one moment he's angry at someone or something and kicking Ironhide and the next he's cool with them as a team, as well as also being quick to rush into action without thinking and getting into trouble despite being ordered not to do and his annoying overuse of saying, "Give me a break". He had potential especially with his newfound ability to sense energon or danger and how he actually is capable of fighting in battle, but that former element of his is barely utilized and as a whole, he's one of the least likeable human characters in a Transformers show and could've been so much more.

Outside of those notable members of the cast, most of the other Bots and Cons in the show range from okay to forgettable, with select few that hold their own and stand out in a good way or as I previously mentioned are either mishandled or wasted.

Standout Episodes:
+ Megatron Resurrected
+ Battle of the Asteroid Belt
+ Protection
+ Imprisoned Inferno
+ Farewell Inferno
+ Shockblast: Rampage
+ The Power
+ Optimus Supreme
+ Spark
+ The Sun
= Unicron Perishes
- The Legend of Rodimus
- The Return of Demolishor
- Crash Course
- Team Optimus Prime
- Ambition
- Distribution

Final Thoughts:

Okay, I think I've slammed this show long enough.

Transformers: Energon is not the worst show I've ever seen. There are much worse shows than this one that are way more offensive and grating on my nerves than this show ever got even in its worst moments, but even with that being said, Energon is definitely the worst of the Unicorn Trilogy and a very disappointing and poor followup to Armada. While I do think it is somewhat over hated and over hyped as an absolute dumpster fire of a Transformers series and even though I do think it has a handful of redeeming qualities that aren't given enough credit, it still is a pretty bad show at the end of the day and one of the weaker Transformers shows that I wouldn't recommend and would instead recommend my own rewrite of the show I wrote way back in my high school days if you want a version that's at least better than what we're stuck with, which while certainly near the bottom as far as Transformers shows go is a show that I would be lying if I said wasn't one I felt had potential to be something more.

4/10

What do you think of Transformers: Energon?