Transformers: Prime (cartoon)

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We finally have toys... we think.

Transformers: Prime is a multiple Daytime Emmy Award-winning computer-animated television series that premiered on The Hub on November 26, 2010 with a five-part mini-series, which was followed by a season of another 21 episodes beginning on February 11, 2011. Season 2 began screening February 18, 2012, and a third season of thirteen episodes with the subtitle Beast Hunters will begin screening on March 22, 2013. It will be the final season of the show.

The Canadian broadcast of the series has been undertaken by Corus Entertainment, and the show is currently airing on Teletoon.

The series premiered in the UK on September 5, 2011 on Cartoon Network's "Action Heroes" block. It began airing in Japan on April 7, 2012 on TV Aichi.

Story

Team Prime lives on Earth as a pre-emptive measure against the return of the Decepticons. Autobot Central Command is located in a converted missile silo in Nevada which was provided by the United States government, with whom the Autobots have formed an alliance. However, the presence of Transformers on Earth is not generally known among the civilian population. The Autobots have taken three human teens under their protection after their association with the Autobots put them in danger from the Decepticons.

Megatron returns having discovered Dark Energon, which grants him rule of life itself, but is injured, with Starscream taking command in his absence. In addition to the Decepticons, the Autobots also contend with the human terrorist organization, MECH.

Cast

Autobots	Decepticons	Humans	Others
Main Cast Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) Arcee (Sumalee Montano) Bulkhead (Kevin Michael Richardson) Ratchet (Jeffrey Combs) Bumblebee Wheeljack (James Horan) Smokescreen (Nolan North) Others Alpha Trion (George Takei) Cliffjumper (Dwayne Johnson/Billy Brown) Tailgate (Josh Keaton) Seaspray	Main Cast Megatron (Frank Welker) Starscream (Steve Blum) Soundwave Knock Out (Daran Norris) Breakdown (Adam Baldwin) Airachnid (Gina Torres) Dreadwing (Tony Todd) Others Shockwave (David Sobolov) Laserbeak Hardshell (David Kaye) Skyquake (Richard Green) Makeshift (Kevin Michael Richardson) Predacons	Main Cast Jack Darby (Josh Keaton) Miko Nakadai (Tania Gunadi) Raf Esquivel (Andy Pessoa) William Fowler (Ernie Hudson) Others Silas (Clancy Brown) June Darby (Markie Post) Sierra (Alexandra Krosney) Vince (Brad Raider) General Bryce (Robert Forster) Vogel (John DiMaggio)	Unicron (John Noble) Nemesis Prime (Peter Cullen/Clancy Brown) Nemesis (Kevin Michael Richardson) Terrorcons

Gregg Berger will be voicing a character.

Episodes

For further information, see: List of Prime episodes

Season 1

1. Darkness Rising, Part 1
2. Darkness Rising, Part 2
3. Darkness Rising, Part 3
4. Darkness Rising, Part 4
5. Darkness Rising, Part 5
6. Masters & Students
7. Scrapheap
8. Con Job
9. Convoy
10. Deus ex Machina
11. Speed Metal
12. Predatory
13. Sick Mind
14. Out of His Head
15. Shadowzone
16. Operation: Breakdown
17. Crisscross
18. Metal Attraction
19. Rock Bottom
20. Partners
21. T.M.I.
22. Stronger, Faster
23. One Shall Fall
24. One Shall Rise, Part 1
25. One Shall Rise, Part 2
26. One Shall Rise, Part 3

Season 2

1. Orion Pax, Part 1
2. Orion Pax, Part 2
3. Orion Pax, Part 3
4. Operation Bumblebee, Part 1
5. Operation Bumblebee, Part 2
6. Loose Cannons
7. Crossfire
8. Nemesis Prime
9. Grill
10. Armada
11. Flying Mind
12. Tunnel Vision
13. Triangulation
14. Triage
15. Toxicity
16. Hurt
17. Out of the Past
18. New Recruit
19. The Human Factor
20. Legacy
21. Alpha/Omega
22. Hard Knocks
23. Inside Job
24. Patch
25. Regeneration
26. Darkest Hour

Season 3: Beast Hunters

1. Darkmount, NV
2. Scattered
3. Prey

Production

GET OFF MY FACE!!!

After the live-action film series, screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman signed to become show runners with Jeff Kline and Duane Capizzi of The Hub's Transformers cartoon, explaining the TV show would not have the constraints of a two-hour film in delving into the mythology. (Orci's employees Steven Puri and Mandy Safavi were also credited as producers.) The show runners were given the "Binder of Revelation", a near 400-page production bible that Hasbro had been working on since the movies, that combined elements of the most popular continuities. The show's title was based on the desire to create a master continuity and a literal Prime continuity. Whereas the movies were about a boy and his car, the dynamic between the kids and the robots on the show was meant to be more like The Iron Giant.

The writing staff was headed by Capizzi, with Marsha Griffin as the story editor. The staff consists of Nicole Dubuc, Joseph Kuhr and Steven Melching. Kline said they wanted the show to be very cinematic, with tension, suspense and danger (as marked by Cliffjumper's death in the pilot) as children are more media savvy than they were in the past. Regardless, they had to be considerate as the show still had a broad audience. As part of the aligned continuity family with War for Cybertron and Exodus, the producers strove to maintain many of the common elements (eg. Optimus and Megatron's past friendship, Dark Energon's origins as Unicron's spawn, Bumblebee sharing his film counterpart's backstory), but were allowed contradictions if it served the storytelling. By using the mammoth story bible, the writers could plan events years in advance. The large number of episodes per season meant they could pace and establish characters during season 1 slowly, while saving the more momentous, less stand alone episodes that delved into the backstory for season 2. Some of the plot ideas (namely the zombie robots) were based on stories they came up with when playing with the toys as kids. Bob Skir has written some episodes.

Designers include Christophe Vacher (colors), Vince Toyama and Jevon Bue (backgrounds) and Jose Lopez (lead character designer). Vacher wanted to do something different from traditional animation and saw something edgy about Prime. According to Ken Christiansen, the show's characters were formed by Hasbro Studios hiring freelance conceptual artists like himself. The submitted artwork was given Lopez's staff to be examined, and they incorporated the ideas they liked best. Other concept artists include Augusto Barranco and Walter Gatus.

Supervising director Dave Hartman headed a team including Todd Waterman, Shaunt Nigoghossian, Vinton Heuck and Kirk Van Wormer. Polygon Pictures provided the CG animation, for which Digitalscape performed a recruitment drive for before the show began production. Lopez said the animation would be a "groundbreaking mix of 2D animation and CGI". Each character has three CG models: the robot mode, their alternate mode, and one for the transformation. Lopez said the designs were personality driven, and that the 3D animation allowed them to go "crazy" with the transformation schemes. In contrast, the characters were given realistic textures, and are subject to battle damage during episodes. A show on the level of Prime would take two years to produce, but the animators only had ten months. Five episodes are animated at a time (hence the monthly gaps during the first season).

The staff had three years of story planned, but while writing it became clear that the escalating storylines made it impossible to maintain self-contained episodes and they burned through those planned three years within the second season. The idea of incorporating Beasts into the third season was a late idea.

Susan Blu was the casting director, but was replaced as voice director by Jamie Simone following a death in her family. Brian Tyler composed the show's theme song and background music. Matthew Margeson served as music arranger.

Awards and nominations

2011 Daytime Emmy Awards

• Outstanding Performer In An Animated Program - Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime
• Outstanding Directing In An Animated Program - David Hartman, Supervising Director; Shaunt Nigoghossian; Todd Waterman; Vinton Heuck; Susan Blu, Voice Director
• Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation - Vince Toyama, Background Designer (WINNER)
• Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation - Christophe Vacher, Colour Designer (WINNER)
• Outstanding Achievement in Music Direction And Composition - Brian Tyler
• Outstanding Writing In Animation - Duane Capizzi, Writer/Producer; Steven Melching; Nicole Dubuc; Joseph Kuhr; Marsha Griffin

2012 Daytime Emmy Awards

• Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing (Animation) - Robbi Smith, Dialogue Editor, Robert Poole II, Sound Effects Editor, Roy Braverman, Foley Editor
• Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing (Animation) - Ray Leonard, Re-Recording Mixer, Mike Bieriger, Re-Recording Mixer
• Outstanding Special Class Animated Program - Roberto Orci, Stephen Davis, Shuzo Shiota, Alex Kurtzman, Jeff Kline, Duane Capizzi, Mandy Safavi, Rafael Ruthchild, Shinji Santoh, Meiko Sato, Therese Trujillo (WINNER)
• Outstanding Directing in an Animated Program - David Hartman, Vinton Heuck, Shaunt Nigoghossian, Todd Waterman, Jamie Simone
• Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation - Christophe Vacher (WINNER)

Japanese release

Super Robot Lifeform Transformers: Prime (超ロボット生命体 トランスフォーマー プライム Chō Robot Seimeitai Transformers Prime) began airing in Japan on TV Tokyo affiliate TV Aichi, beginning April 7, 2012, with an 8am Saturday morning timeslot (the same channel and timeslot as the previous two Transformers cartoons to air in Japan).

To reflect Takara's unique marketing strategy for the toyline—the prominent gimmick of the non-show Arms Microns—the series includes CGI-animated cartoon shorts starring these little robots, called "Arms Micron Theater", at the end of every episode. The shorts center around the Arms Microns maintaining an undercover presence amongst the Autobots, who are not even aware that their weapons are alive.

Another additional segment titled "From the Cybertron Satellite, Transformers Division", hosted by the popular J-pop idol group, Tokyo Girls' Style, was also tacked onto each episode. These segments feature the idol girls interacting with Vector Sigma in order to relay important facts about the Transformers franchise to the audience.

Due to the longer title sequence and end credits, as well as the two additional bonus segments, each episode has had approximately three minutes of content removed for time constraints. These edits are mostly intuitive and unintrusive so as not to harm the coherency of the narrative.

Like all Japanese dubs of Western Transformers cartoons, transformation commands have been added, such as shouting "Transform!" Additionally, whenever a character pops their weapon out of their hands/arms, they now scream "Arms Up!" Text is overlayed on the screen whenever a character first appears in each episode, providing their name and function. In addition, promotional text for various Transformers-specific campaigns from TakaraTomy scroll by over the episode as things are happening, which can be kind of... distracting.

Like the dubs of Beast Wars, Beast Wars Metals, Beast Wars Returns and Animated, the localization of Prime has been headed up by Yoshikazu Iwanami. As is his way, Yoshikazu has had the humor ratcheted up considerably. Self-aware, Fourth Wall-breaking jokes have been added; such as at the end of "Darkness Rising, Part 2", when the manipulator arm turns into a spider-like creature and starts crawling around and Ratchet thinks he hears the audience telling him to watch his back, but brushes their concerns off as unimportant. Characters have also been fundamentally altered to be more humorously quirky. Airachnid, for example, has been changed into something of a female Pepe Le Pew; boy-crazy and insanely amorous in her pursuit of Jack. As with Yoshikazu's previous efforts, adlibbing is utilized extensively to soften tension and suspense; the characters talk a lot.

The theme songs are:

• OP 1: "FEELING" by BIGBANG
• ED 1: "I Believe in All" by CLUTCHO
• OP 2: "TRANSFORMERZ" by m-flo
• ED 2: "A Little Bit" by CLUTCHO
• OP 3: "TRANSFORMERZ (version 2.0)" by m-flo
• ED 3: "Discord" by Tokyo Girls' Style

Home video releases

United States

• Transformers: Prime - Darkness Rising (2011)
• Transformers: Prime - Includes 3 episodes (2011)
• Transformers: Prime - Season One (2012)
• Transformers: Prime - One Shall Stand (2012)

Germany

• Transformers: Prime #1 - Die dunkle Macht erhebt sich (2012)
• Transformers: Prime #2 - Meister und Schüler (2012)
• Transformers: Prime #3 - Nur dieses eine Mal (2012)
• Transformers: Prime #4 - Die vierte Dimension (2012)
• Transformers: Prime #5 - Metallische Anziehung (2012)
• Transformers: Prime #6 - Die Prophezeiung (2012)
• Transformers: Prime Staffel 1 (2012)

Australia

• Transformers: Prime - Volume 1: Darkness Rising (2012)
• Transformers: Prime - Volume 2: Unfamiliar Enemies (2012)
• Transformers: Prime - Volume 3: Alien Threat (2012)
• Transformers: Prime - Volume 4: Strength in Numbers (2012)
• Transformers: Prime - Volume 5: One Shall Fall, One Shall Rise (2012)

Notes

• Unlike most Transformers shows, episodes do not have an episode title card. Episode titles are from The Hub website.
• The series has also been advertised as Transformers: Prime - The Animated Series.
• The show was said to be "rightfully huge" at the BotCon 2010 panel. Later, at the Hasbro designers' panel, the Thirteen original Transformers were described as being "rightfully huge".
• Executive Producer Jeff Kline confirmed they have talked about producing a theatrical Prime film.
• With 65 episodes, Transformers: Prime is the second-longest run of any Transformers series after the original series from the 1980s, which ran for 98 episodes.

External links

• Hub World page
  • Hub for Teachers page
• Behind the scenes video