User:Nevermore/Sandbox/Transformers: Prime (cartoon)

Praise and criticism

Initially, the series received a lot of praise from fans. In particular, those that had previously been turned off by the light-hearted nature and the cartoon-esque designs of Transformers Animated welcomed the more "serious" tone and the more elaborate designs of Prime, as well as the fact that this show's Autobots used blasters as their primary weapons again. The intense fight between Arcee, Cliffjumper and several Vehicons in the first episode, "Darkness Rising, Part 1", was viewed as an indication of this show's bold new direction, which was then further emphasized by the death of what appeared to be a "main" character (Cliffjumper) in the very same episode. Others, however, would criticize Cliffjumper's death as a cheap "shock value" stunt, which, coupled with the fact that he was voiced by a big name star (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) and his resurrection as a "zombie" in the following episode, "Darkness Rising, Part 2", only to be killed off again within the same episode, made it seem like Hasbro Studios was aiming for spectacle and a false sense of "anyone could die!" early on to create attention for their new show. Following that, actual main characters would be killed off with much less frequency.

The Vehicons were also the center of much criticism: In their initial battle with Arcee and Cliffjumper, they were presented as a serious threats, but as the show progressed, there were quickly depowered to the point where they were reduced to mere cannon fodder for the Autobots to shoot and kill. This provided the show with the chance to have battles with casualties without any real consequences, due to the Vehicons' generic appearance (coupled wth the fact that they're supposed to be the "bad guys"), as well as the fact that Hasbro Studios could save money by reusing existing animation models. The same treatment (serious threat in their first appearance, cannon fodder in later appearances) would later be given to the Insecticons. Many fans also cited this as an example of double standards for the show and its Autobot protagonists: On the one hand, the Autobots would shoot Vehicons and Insecticons by the dozens, but on the other hand, Cliffjumper's death at the hands of Starscream continued to be presented as a big deal (not helped in the least by the fact that Starscream wouldn't shut up about it). The show's cynical treatment of the Vehicons as faceless cannon fodder would eventually give way to the meme of "Steve the Vehicon".

As the show progressed, numerous long-going plot threads were eventually dropped with no real resolution, often by way of abruptly killing off one of the main characters involved in said plot thread. Those include:

• Breakdown's ongoing rivalry with Bulkhead comes to a sudden halt in "Crossfire", when Breakdown is killed off by Airachnid, and his remains end up in the hands of MECH.
• The ongoing threat of MECH comes to a sudden halt in "The Human Factor", when MECH's surgeons and technicians merge their injured leader Silas with Breakdown's rebuilt body and turn him into Cylas, who then proceeds to kill off his old team for a rather sketchy reason.
• Cylas himself ends up a prisoner of the Decepticons within the same episode and is implied to be killed off afterwards; though he is later revealed to be alive in "Thirst", he is eventually killed off for good in said episode.
• Dreadwing's discovery of Starscream's involvement in his brother Skyquake's death in "Patch", and his desire for revenge, is cut short only one episode later, in "Regeneration", when Megatron kills his former second-in-command Dreadwing in order to bring "unity" to the Decepticons, instead reinstating Starscream of all bots as his new second-in-command.

While there is nothing inherently wrong with sudden unexpected murders interrupting a character's arc from a storytelling standpoint, Transformers: Prime arguably made it its standard method of dropping ongoing plot threads with no real resulution.

For comparison, the plot thread of Bulkhead's injuries, which he suffers in "Toxicity", and the following recovery, has a clear progresson and something that resembles a resolution, even though it takes "only" five episodes until he is fully functional again.

The first half of season 2, which focused on the Autobots' and Decepticons' race to find several powerful artifacts revealed to be on Earth as part of Project Iacon, was criticized as a formulaic "relic hunt" that was occasionally compared to early episodes of Armada.

The third season with its new Beast Hunters theme, the plot thread of the Predacons and several character design changes seemed to come out of nowhere. Many fans viewed this sudden shift in the show's overall direction as an indication for editorial interference demanding a plot thread being cut short in favor of a new one. Former Hasbro employee Rik Alvarez later addressed this at a panel held at TFCon Charlotte in 2015, claiming that this was the direct result of staff changes within Hasbro, and season 3 was originally supposed to take a completely different direction. He also claimed the new staff had demanded even more changes based on toys that were released.

The animation was also occasionally the target of criticism; in particular, the lack of generic humans in the background of wide shots often made Jasper, Nevada almost seem like a ghost town.