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 Jessica DiGiovanni 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
The planet Cybertron has been ravaged by an endless civil war between Optimus Prime and his Autobots and Megatron and his Decepticons, with the former in ruins but refusing to stand down. Frustrated, Ultra Magnus surrenders to Megatron shortly before they learn of the life-giving Allspark, and Shockwave's plan to reformat all Autobots on the planet into Decepticons. Ultra Magnus overhears everything and relays it to the Autobots, launching a hunt for the Allspark from both factions. After an imprisoned Ultra Magnus is murdered by Megatron, neutral scavenger Bumblebee obtains the Alpha Trion Protocols containing the location of the Allspark and reluctantly joins the Autobots. Despite warnings of dooming the planet itself, Optimus Prime forms a plan to flee Cybertron aboard the Ark with the Allspark. The Autobots cautiously trust ex-Decepticon Jetfire to lead them into the dangerous Sea of Rust to obtain the Allspark, while Ratchet and Decepticon Impactor repair a derelict space bridge, and Bumblebee steals raw energon from the Mercenaries to power the Ark. The synchronous plan succeeds, though Elita-1 is left to continue the war effort on Cybertron, the Allspark is lost among the stars, and the Ark is left adrift as an unknown ship approaches...
With Cybertron unable to sustain life, Megatron and the Decepticons plan to search for a new world aboard the newly-constructed Nemesis, though Elita-1 and her team cause trouble by freeing prisoners whose sparks power the ship. The Ark Autobots are captured by the Fool's Fortune Mercenaries led by Doubledealer and contracted by Quintesson Judge Deseeus, though he betrays them, motivating the thieves help the Autobots escape, while secretly selling out their location to Megatron. After the Nemesis departs to follow the Ark, Shockwave lures other weak Decepticons to Kaon Arena to harvest their sparks, prompting Elita-1 and Decepticon Scrapface's forces to detonate the harvester, though they are all killed in the blast. Elsewhere, the Ark locates the Allspark and travels to the derelict Nebulon Station, but their attempts to destroy it and pass through the accompanying space bridge come to a stop by the Decepticons. After a united brawl against the Scorponok, Starscream uses the Nemesis cannons to destroy everyone present, but the resulting explosion opens a rift to the Dead Universe. Inside, the Ark crew finds the jaded Sky Lynx, who helps Optimus open an exit rift to Earth. Meanwhile, Megatron temporarily 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. The Ark, Nemesis, and the in-pursuit Fool's Fortune, now piloted by Deseeus, escape the Dead Universe and lock into a dogfight, culminating in Megatron stealing the Matrix of Leadership. The Fool's Fortune warp-drive explodes, causing the remaining ships to crash—though they are not the only Cybertronians on the planet...
The bestial Maximals and Predacons locate their ancestors, the Autobots and Decepticons respectively, in the harsh landscape of prehistoric Earth. While the Decepticons and Predacons consolidate their troops together under the command of two Megatrons (who get along surprisingly well), the Autobots and Maximals initially face each other with hostility. Ultimately, the two heroic factions set aside their differences to beat the two bands of 'cons to capturing the Allspark. The mystical artefact creates a series of unsettling illusions to mislead the two sides. However, the Predacon Dinobot betrays his comrades and steals the Matrix of Leadership back from the original Megatron, returning it to Optimus before giving in to his wounds from Predacon Megatron. The Allspark's eerie illusions culminate in a duel between Optimus Prime and a projection of Ultra Magnus. The spirit of the Allspark ultimately sides with Optimus; guiding him to its physical resting place. Upon reaching the Allspark temple, Optimus is greeted by both Megatron and Optimus Primal, the former waging a climactic battle between the two rivals. An Allspark projection of Elita-1 tells Optimus to surrender the Matrix to Megatron against Primal's advice, resulting in the Matrix rejecting Megatron and sending him into a nightmarish vision. As Prime and Primal return with both the Matrix and the dying Allspark in hand, the Nemesis crew attacks the Ark, resulting in a desperate struggle to get the Ark's systems online while fending off the 'cons. Incredibly, the Ark gains consciousness and transforms into robot mode, having been given schematics for conversion within the Dead Universe and enabled by the Allspark. The transformed Ark completely turns the tables on the Nemesis; with the Decepticon and Predacon troops being sealed within the ship's stasis field. The defected Predacon Blackarachnia forms a temporary alliance with the Ark's crew.
As the Ark lands on a desolate, frozen-over Cybertron via a spacebridge network, Megatron is freed from his imprisonment by Galvatron. The Autobots and Maximals emerge from the ship and plan to return the Allspark to its rightful place within Cybertron before the planet is lost for good. As Bumblebee and Optimus set out together, they encounter Optimus's deranged future self Nemesis Prime, who lashes out at his past self for the Allspark. While Megatron and Galvatron join forces with Nemesis Prime, Bumblebee finds the Temple of the Allspark hidden within a canyon, and manages to enter the temple. As the four factions arrive under Optimus Primal, Megatron turns on Galvatron at Optimus's and Starscream's encouragement. As Bumblebee replaces the Allspark in its altar, the golden spirits of many deceased Cybertronians appear, and magically transport Galvatron and Nemesis Prime away. As the spirits reunite with the Allspark, Cybertron is saved, and the Decepticons and Predacons reconcile their conflict with the Autobots and Maximals on the condition the two sides stay apart, leading to an uncertain age of peace. Meanwhile, Unicron punishes Galvatron and Nemesis Prime for their failure, and reformats them...
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 and their respective seasons. Non-toy character models are heavily based on War for Cybertron Trilogy toy 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' "HPI Null-Ray Laser Launcher", Ultra Magnus's (who ironically does not use this weapon) "RT-15 Stethoscopic Detector" with an extended "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."
