Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy (cartoon)
| The name or term "War for Cybertron" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see War for Cybertron (disambiguation). |
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Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy (also known as War for Cybertron) is an animated series produced by Hasbro and Rooster Teeth based on the War for Cybertron Trilogy toyline, with animation by Polygon Pictures and voice production by Horseless Cowboy. F.J. DeSanto acts as the series showrunner, a role he previously, partially held for the Prime Wars Trilogy web series, with George Krstic, Gavin Hignight, Brandon M. Easton, Tim Sheridan, and Mae Catt as writers. The show also sees Jake Foushee, Jason Marnocha, and Frank Todaro reprising their respective roles as Optimus Prime, Megatron, and Starscream, as well as previous Transformers alumni Keith Silverstein and Sophia Isabella returning for voicework. Three seasons aired on Netflix, one for each of the franchise's three toylines; the first season was released on July 30, 2020, the second season on December 30, 2020, and the third on July 29, 2021.
In conjunction with the series, Hasbro and TakaraTomy released a Netflix-branded toyline featuring more battle-worn decoes for pre-existing War for Cybertron Trilogy toys, as well as toys based on characters introduced in the show. Leading up to the release of the final chapter, TakaryTomy announced the Premium Finish line, half of which features characters from the Netflix show with extremely animation accurate paint jobs.
Overview
In the final hours of the civil war between the Autobots and Decepticons, the planet Cybertron has been ravaged by endless battle. Dissent forms amongst both factions and forces grow weaker, leaving Optimus Prime and his Autobots on their last leg. Frustrated, Ultra Magnus surrenders to the Decepticons shortly before Megatron learns of the mystical Allspark. He eventually eases himself into Shockwave's plan to use the vessel of life to reformat all Autobots on the planet into Decepticons, unifying them as one faction under his rule. Meanwhile, neutral scavenger Bumblebee wants no part in the war but is forced to join the conflict when he obtains the Alpha Trion Protocols and the location of the Allspark after the imprisoned Ultra Magnus is murdered. Despite Elita-1's warnings, Optimus Prime forms a plan to flee the planet aboard the Ark and eject the Allspark, at the cost of the planet itself. The Autobots cautiously trust ex-Decepticon Jetfire to lead them into the dangerous Sea of Rust to obtain the Allspark, while a reluctant Ratchet and Decepticon Impactor repair a derelict space bridge, and Wheeljack repairs the Ark, assisted by Bumblebee's energon theft from the Mercenaries. The synchronous plan succeeds, and the Ark and Allspark each travel to an unknown location, leaving Elita-1 and her team to continue the war effort on Cybertron.
With Cybertron unable to sustain life, Megatron and the Decepticons plan to flee the dead planet aboard the newly-constructed Nemesis, powered by the sparks of weak and imprisoned Decepticons, though Elita-1 and her team set on freeing them. The Ark Autobots are taken by Mercenary Doubledealer and the Fool's Fortune crew to Quintesson Judge Deseeus on Chaar, though a double-cross allows the Autobots to flee, at the cost of Megatron knowing their location. After the Nemesis departures to follow the Ark, Shockwave lures in more weak for spark harvesting, prompting the now-free Scrapface and Elita-1's forces to explode Kaon Arena. Unfortunately, their capture leads to no-escape, as the explosion engulfs both Elita-1 and Shockwave's teams. Elsewhere, the Ark locates the Allspark and travels to the Nebulon Station, but their attempts to detonate it to pass through the space-bridge come to a stop by Scorponok and Megatron. Eventually, Starscream aboard the Nemesis fires to kill Megatron as a gambit for power, but the resulting explosion opens a rift to the Dead Universe. Inside, the Ark crew find the jaded Sky Lynx, who takes Optimus Prime on a spiritual journey and helps him open an exit rift to the location of the Allspark: Earth. Meanwhile, Megatron meets his future-self Galvatron, who urges him to use his hatred to kill Optimus Prime, leading to Sky Lynx's sacrifice to save the Autobots. After Unicron pulls Galvatron away, the Ark, Nemesis, and the in-pursuit Fool's Fortune escape the Dead Universe and lock into a dogfight, which ends with Megatron taking the Matrix of Leadership. The Deseeus-controlled Doubledealer, craving for revenge, attacks the other ships, though retaliation results in the Fool's Fortune warp-drive exploding, causing the Ark to crash on pre-historic Earth—but neither the Autobots and Decepticons are aware that they are not the only Cybertronians on the planet...
Cast
Episodes
Chapter 1: Siege
Chapter 2: Earthrise
Chapter 3: Kingdom
Notes
- Originally planned for a June 2020 release, the series premiere was delayed one month, reportedly due to production delays with its foreign-language dubs caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Siege was promoted with several motion posters highlighting members of the main cast. In each of these posters, a letter from the "Ancient Autobot" alphabet created by Jim Sorenson can be seen flashing in the background. When the letters are put in order, they spell out the word "KINGDOM", the name of the trilogy's third subline/season.[1]
- During production, the animation team utilized Hasbro's original CAD files for the War for Cybertron Trilogy toyline. As a result, certain character models are absurdly toy-accurate, down to several even retaining their 5 mm post holes and 3 mm pegs. Most of these models are in the Siege chapter, as the production of the show was far later in the toyline's development compared to Earthrise and Kingdom, with Kingdom having newly created non-CAD models for the Beast Wars characters roughly based on previous show appearance or existing Masterpiece figures. Non-toy character models are heavily based on War for Cybertron Trilogy concept art created by Ken Christiansen[2], except for Elita-1, Arcee, Alpha Trion, the Cybertronian-body Predacons, and Galvatron, the last of which was created far before the Kingdom toy's development, and used concept art based on The Transformers: The Movie, with additional input from Hasbro.[3]
- The series features extensive use of generics, though both sides use different character models as the base for their troops. The Autobots use Cog, Sideswipe, Mirage, Ironhide, and Hound to pad their forces while the Decepticons use Impactor, Refraktor, Barricade, and, as usual, the Seekers. All of these generics except for Cog and Impactor are used for the Sparkless, with Laserbeak used for the Sea of Rust birds, Omega Supreme for the Guardians, Impactor for the Dome Guards and a gladiator, Ironhide for the Deseeus Army Drones, and Scorponok for the Predacons. Hasbro decides which characters can be used as generic soldiers.[3]
- In addition to generic character models, many characters use generic firearms based on certain toy accessories as opposed to a dedicated weapon. The weapons are Cog's "RT-5 Circuit Welder", Refraktor's "EMM Distortion Blaster", Chromia's "RT-5 Anti-thermo Blaster" with the "SR Hushfuze" barrel, the Seekers' (colored like Hotlink's) "HPI Null-Ray Laser Launcher", Ultra Magnus's (who ironically does not use this weapon) "RT-15 Stethoscopic Detector" with the "SR Hushfuze" barrel, and Rattrap's fusion blaster.
- Upon its initial release in the United States, War for Cybertron Trilogy was given a TV-Y7 designation, despite the show's dark tone, violence, and brief use of coarse language in the first episode. Presumably due to these very criteria, the series was later re-rated to TV-14, making it the first Transformers television series to carry that designation. Due to the separation of seasons into separate listings (below), Earthrise and Kingdom keep the TV-Y7 rating.
- Despite the three parts being advertised as three chapters of one series when the second Earthrise trailer was released, it also received a separate page on Netflix, and Kingdom followed suit. The original War for Cybertron Trilogy page's title graphic was also changed to include Siege and the number 1 behind it. This also means that Netflix calls the Earthrise and Kingdom episodes each "Chapter 1" as well.
- While the Siege chapter received a recap on the Earthrise page, the Kingdom page featured no such recap for Earthrise. Drat!
Foreign names
- Chinese: Biànxíng Jīngāng: Sàibótǎn Dàzhàn Sānbùqǔ (Taiwan, 變形金剛：賽博坦大戰三部曲 "Transformers: Cybertron War Trilogy")
- German: Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy: Die Belagerung (Siege), Erdaufgang (Earthrise), Eine neue Welt (Kingdom)
- Italian: Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy - L'assedio (Siege), Il Sorgere della Terra (Earthrise), Il Regno (Kingdom)
- Japanese: Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy (トランスフォーマー: ウォー・フォー・サイバトロン・トリロジー Toransufōmā: Wō fō Saibatoron Torirojī)
- Portuguese: Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy - O Cerco (Siege), O Nascer da Terra (Earthrise), O Reino (Kingdom)
References
- ↑ Netflix video of all motion posters with the announcement of KINGDOM.
- ↑ Ken Christiansen's Instagram
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 F.J. DeSanto in a July 14, 2021 interview stated, "We based it on the con-so we didn't have the CAD data for that, 'cause-uh, we knew he was gonna be in the third one, in Kingdom, but they hadn't done the toy yet, 'cause Kingdom was so far out, like I mentioned earlier. We designed a version of-the version you see was our design, but it was based on the concept art they gave us, which I think is from the '86 movie, but we updated it a little bit to fit the um-the tone of the show and also based on some things Hasbro told us they were doing with the toy."
"Y'know in the early things, the Cogs were the soldiers, and the Seekers and-y'know, we would have these different soldiers and Hasbro sort of designated like these are the ones who can be soldiers, and Scorponok was, y'know, the sort of footsoldiers for the, uh-Predacons. That's why you see a bunch of them."
