YMMV / Transformers: Prime

• Accidental Innuendo:
  • Jack saying he cares about Arcee because she was "his first" can be taken several ways he hopefully did not intend. This isn't helped when Jack's mother comments that Arcee "isn't the kind of girl I imagined him ditching me for".
  • D.N.G.S., specifically, how it's pronounced ("din-gus"), prompting the Youtube comment "Silas really wants Fowler's Dingus".
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Is Starscream's horror and outrage over Megatron's death genuine? Or a ploy to gain support from the remaining Decepticon forces?
  • Likewise, when Starscream helped Megatron while his leader was battling Predaking, was it out of any genuine loyalty? Or was he afraid of being Predaking's next victim?
  • Was Knock Out's Heel–Face Turn genuine or him just being pragmatic? There's evidence for both, though it ultimately appears to be genuine.
  • There's some debate about how much agency CYLAS had. Considering that Silas's agenda was to disassemble both Autobots and Decepticons and learn their secrets in addition to possessing an idea of human superiority. After "The Human Factor" he makes the decision to join the Decepticons, which even the episode preview called uncharacteristic. Either his speech to his soldiers before executing them was genuine, or there was some Decepticon influence left in Breakdown's body. Complicating matters further is that he shows physical signs of brain damage, probably affecting his sanity and decision making regardless of the above.
  • In Exodus, Megatron at one point states his belief that one day, Shockwave will turn on him. Though there are many discrepancies, if this particular bit is taken as canon, it would cast his leaving of a just-killed Megatron in the Season 3 finale in a different light.
  • Did Megatron kill Dreadwing solely because he went against his orders and tried to kill Starscream, or did it have anything to do with him giving the Forge of Solus Prime to the Autobots behind his back.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: "Skyquake" is a real-life phenomenon, manifesting in a sound from the sky similar to a sonic boom, but its cause remains unexplained.
• Americans Hate Tingle: Though decently regarded in America, Prime performed horribly in Japan—so much so that the third season was skipped entirely in favor of the homegrown Triple Combination: Transformers Go! Part of this may arise from the odd decision to give the toys a pseudo-model kit gimmick of replacing all paint detail with stickers.
• Ass Pull: Several, most of them regarding plots that were quickly resolved.
  • After spending an entire season and a half screaming for Airachind's blood, Arcee suddenly goes back to Thou Shalt Not Kill and simply gets Airachnid locked in a stasis pod. Furthermore, Airachnid's Insecticon army is quickly integrated into the Decepticon ranks in the same episode they became a threat. At least in Arcee's defense, Airachind stepped on the trap by accident before anyone can react, and being put into stasis is heavily implied to be a Fate Worse than Death.
  • Despite Ratchet dramatically stating that he may never be fully functional again and an episode that was part Clip Show revolving around him (seemingly as a farewell to him), Bulkhead quickly recovers from his Game-Breaking Injury a few episodes later. Similarly, his resentment of newbie Smokescreen is introduced in one episode and gone the next (though Smokescreen saving Bulkhead from being offlined by CYLAS probably has something to do with this change in attitude).
  • In the season two premiere, Smokescreen returns to the Autobot base shortly after evacuating via Groundbridge, and finds the base destroyed. It shouldn't work this way at all: Smokescreen uses the same Groundbridge he had just used, meaning he should've returned before the blast hit, and ignores the fact that Ratchet had closed and opened the Groundbridge for his own use already. It's the mechanics of the show bending over backwards so that Smokescreen can go save Optimus.
  • Bumblebee and Megatron both being brought back to life despite the famous statement early on that All Deaths Final.
  • How was Raf always able to hack into government computers anyway? And how was he able to understand Bumblebee?
  • Airachnid gaining the ability to control the minds of Insecticons comes out nowhere and is never explained or elaborated on and just feels more like a convenient way for her to acquire her own army.
  • Unicron's spark was extinguished by the Matrix of Leadership in the Season 1 finale, so his sudden return via possessing Megatron (by virtue of the Dark Energon still running through the latter) comes off as little more than a half-assed means by which to give Predacons Rising a Big Bad. Although there is plenty of precedent in the franchise for Unicron coming back from a supposed death.
• Award Snub: After receiving six Emmy Nominations, it lost three of them to The Penguins of Madagascar and one to... Fanboy and Chum Chum.
• Awesome Music: The series is composed by Hollywood-mainstay Brian Tyler, and combine that with influences of Steve Jablonsky from the live-action films and you get a cinematic masterpiece on the scale of the small screen.
• Badass Decay: Starscream's badassness is at its apex (no pun intended) in the first season, possibly even the first episode which introduces him as a Hero Killer. It downplays greatly in later seasons, where his opportunistic tendencies are given more attention instead of any skill and cunning that he does actually possess.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Bumblebee gets a bit of this from time to time, as some fans feel (not entirely without reason) that he's more of a transplant of Movieverse 'Bee than a nuanced character in his own right for the sake of kid appeal, and the ungodly amount of merchandise revolving around him doesn't help this perception in the least. He did, however, lose a lot of detractors in Season 3 when he Took a Level in Badass, and was more or less Rescued from the Scrappy Heap entirely in "Deadlock" and Predacons Rising, where his awesomeness is taken up to eleven.
  • Airachnid. While there is a consensus that she is scary and that Gina Torres' performance is good, fans are split as to whether or not she's too much of an expy of Blackarachnia/Lockdown/Tarantulas, particularly when she charms an Insecticon, or controls it. To say nothing of her killing Breakdown or other potential cruel moments.
  • Of the three human children, the only one who seems to really divide the fandom is Miko (Jack and Raf seem to mostly just be quietly tolerated). Particularly early on in the series, she shows a serious lack of survival instinct and willingness to jump into chaos. This may be an attempt to make her an Audience Surrogate, with her wanting adventure and loving giant robots, but many found it more like she's borderline detached from reality, giving no care for the danger she drags herself and others into. However, throughout season two (but particularly in the second half), Miko gets a little better in the survival instincts department (or at least, it seems that way) and while she still has her brash moments, her obnoxiousness has been toned down considerably. This Character Development has arguably improved her status amongst the fans.
    • Going off of that, Miko's behavior in "Out of the Past." Either she's acting out of a desperate, understandable fear for Bulkhead, or she's blown her last big chance for character development and once again learned nothing.
• Broken Base:
  • The opening theme. A strong, awesome beginning, or boring?
    • The new season three opening has caught some flak from above opening's fans.
  • Breakdown's death seems to have caused a significant deal of controversy among the fanbase, with some considering it a strong moment where the show took real risks and showed that Anyone Can Die while others felt that it just wasted one of their best characters for nothing.
  • After "Toxicity", you either wanted Bulkhead to die after so many near deaths or you didn't. Then summaries for "Hurt" leaked and the writers were either accused of following Status Quo Is God or praised for not killing Bulk off, though admittedly more wanted the former after feeling that it was a Writer Copout.
  • The second season. Depending on who you ask, it either wasted too many characters and plot threads, or successfully continued Growing the Beard from the first.
    • In that same vein, the Orion Pax arc is, to some, a massive heap of wasted potential. To others, though, it's considered one of the high points of the series.
  • Optimus's revival in "Rebellion" has divided the fanbase as to whether or not this is a good decision. But considering how often the franchise pulls this move, others have come to roll with it and expect it to keep happening.
  • The finale is a source of huge division amongst the fanbase. Both of them to an extent, with Deadlock being the big contender for controversy, and Predacons Rising receiving a bit of confused reactions for its ending.
• Cant Unhear It: This series pretty much cemented Peter Cullen and Frank Welker as the definitive voices for Optimus Prime, Megatron, and Soundwave to modern fans, with additional praise going to Steve Blum as Starscream, Darran Norris as Knock Out, Michael Ironside as Ultra Magnus and David Sobolov as Shockwave. For the latter 4, Ironside, Sobolov and Blum have become popular secondary choices to Jack Angel, Robert Stack, Chris Latta, Brian Drummond, and Corey Burton as Magnus, Starscream, and Shockwave, while Norris has become the fans' definitive version of Knock Out. Blum and Sobolov's performances proved so popular that the former reprised his role in EarthSpark, while the voice for Cyberverse's version of Shockwave was patterned after the latter.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Silas's fate in "Nemesis Prime". Over the course of Season 1 and the first half of Season 2, he mutilates Breakdown for his parts, helps Airachnid try to murder a teenage boy and his mother, nearly disables Bumblebee for life by stealing his T-Cog, tries to personally kill Agent Fowler by sending him off the side of a bridge, and shanks Optimus Prime through the stomach with a sword. And throughout all of these evil acts, he always manages to escape unscathed as a Karma Houdini. In the climax of "Nemesis Prime", he finally gets exactly what he deserves when Optimus causes his very own Frankenstein's monster to fall on top of him from several stories up, and it very nearly crushes him to death. It is immensely satisfying.
  • It gets taken up to eleven at the end of "The Human Factor" as he's hauled away for dissection, the same fate he attempted to inflict on Breakdown, Arcee, Bumblebee and Starscream.
• Complete Monster: Unicron, Airachnid, and Colonel Leland "Silas" Bishop. For more details, see here.
• Continuity Lockout: While not necessarily excessive, the show is rather continuity-heavy.
  • The wiki, of course, lampshades this in its "Thirst" article, which is a big example of it: The events of "Armada", "The Human Factor", and "Stronger, Faster" receive payoff, the third particularly after the second season seemed to quietly ignore it.
    "Yowza, this would be a tough episode to start watching the series."
  • Just to give you an idea, there are 65 episodes in the series proper. Of those episodes, every episode in some way builds upon the last, and contributes something for future episodes (even if the contributions are absurdly small).
• Crazy Is Cool: Vogel. Firmly believes in the existence of mole men and other subterranean monsters, and uses his sweeper train to run over Decepticons.
• Creepy Awesome:
  • Soundwave, whose Slenderman-esque design, lack of speaking and ruthless efficiency at getting things done make him both very creepy and very cool.
  • Prime may have the most scary and threatening incarnation of Shockwave to date, with a deep, monotone voice, pragmatic and emotionless way of thinking, and a similar ruthlessness to Soundwave.
  • Airachnid, for being essentially a Transformer Serial Killer
• Draco in Leather Pants:
  • Starscream. Sure, you can sympathize with him for how often he gets beaten down by Megatron, but he's still someone who shows no hesitation at backstabbing others, executing captured and wounded prisoners, or threatening human children. Not to mention he repeatedly rejects chances to turn good and join the Autobots in favor of staying a Decepticon.
  • Knock Out is probably the most likeable Decepticon in the show, but that doesn't change the fact that he's still largely gung-ho with everything they do. It's not helped by the fact that he also gets his fair share of sympathetic moments, especially after Breakdown died.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Almost any of the non-leader 'bots and 'cons seem to have their fair share of popularity. Exceptions appear to be Airachnid, Darksteel and Sky Lynx. The latter two aren't unpopular per say, they just didn't have much time for characterization.
  • Wheeljack got some popularity for being one of the most badass characters in the series and eventually got fleshed out as a roguish but loyal cavalier. He ended up joining the main cast full-time in the final season.
  • Knock Out almost immediately became a fan favorite for his entertaining, slightly camp behavior, slick and sexy design, and quirks. It's likely why he gets a Heel–Face Turn in the Grand Finale.
  • Breakdown also became popular for his imposing design, respectful rivalry with Bulkhead, and several shades of Hidden Depths ranging from Benevolent Boss to the Vehicons to genuine Bash Brothers with Knock Out. His anticlimactic death early into Season 2 didn't sit well with many people, and is generally considered one of the show's low points.
  • Dreadwing due to his cool design, loving relationship with his twin brother Skyquake, his code of honor that ultimately leads him to have a Redemption Equals Death, and being the only Decepticon aside from Megatron to pose a genuine threat to Optimus. Like Breakdown, his sudden death and getting immediately forgotten was highly unpopular when it happened.
  • Cliffjumper, in spite of being killed off after having very little screen time. Points go to him not being a recolor of Bumblebee.
  • Vogel, who, despite only appearing in one episode, has proven himself to be one of the show's more memorable characters.
  • Shockwave, for his great redesign, and for taking traits from the G1 & Animated's genius intellect, and the Bayverse's incredible killing power. He gets plenty of badass moments along the way, especially when he teams up with fellow dark horse Soundwave. Plus, that voice.
  • Ultra Magnus for being voiced by Michael Ironside and having an awesome tag-team battle against Predaking with Wheeljack after the duo had their Character Development. Not to mention seeing him use a battle hammer (while his Animated incarnation mainly used it for Shock and Awe; Prime Magnus puts it to physical use, just like Animated Optimus, whose usage of it in a physical sense was also applauded), as well as being a Handicapped Badass when Predaking stomps his hand off.
  • Despite what said about, Airachnid actually manages to have a fanbase and even became Canon Immigrant. But usually fans' populary consist of four parts: 1) being a Love to Hate villain; 2) being Ms. Fanservice; 3) showing her connection to Blackarachnia and Lockdown and 4) the mystery of what happened to her after Prime ends.
  • For a human character, Agent Fowler is quite popular for how competent and hilarious yet badass he is.
• Epic Riff: A rising 5-note sequence that recurs throughout the soundtrack.
• Estrogen Brigade: Besides Knockout, the bot with a huge army of fangirls, there’s also Optimus being lusted after by the fangirls. Why? Well…for this lovely feature of his design.
• Evil Is Cool: All of the Decepticons get their moments with this tope. Even Silas, a human villain, manages to pull it off.
  • Megatron. He has his original voice back behind the wheel, and he gets plenty of moments to show off how cunning, dangerous and badass he is.
  • Starscream gets to be this whenever he's given the chance to do something competent and be a major threat.
  • The versions of Soundwave and Shockwave that appear in this show both keep the core essence of their characters, but redesigned to be much more intimidating.
  • Breakdown, for being not just tough but also for having noble qualities about him.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • Some small parts of the fandom from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic tried because they were angry Prime was nominated for the Emmies while their show wasn't. This backfired spectacularly as a majority of the Transfans and Brony communities get along very well, and ganged up on the transgressors.
  • Some fans of Transformers: Animated are not very fond of Prime. Even some fans of both shows have taken sides.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Some viewers prefer to think of Predacons Rising as not being canon to the Transformers: Prime series as a whole, and consider Deadlock to be the true finale of the show instead; this is mainly due to the perceived Ass Pull by which Unicron returns and Optimus Prime dying at the very end, just when it seemed like he and the other Autobots finally got an Earn Your Happy Ending.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Screamernaut and Iron Screamer after Starscream gets the Apex Armor and becomes a nigh-unstoppable war machine.
  • Silasdown for Silas' fusion with Breakdown's corpse.
  • Yanderachnid for Airachnid in the Japanese dub.
  • "Galvatron" for Megatron after Unicron brings him Back from the Dead and then takes over his body, radically altering it. Contrary to fan expectations, the name was never actually used in the show, not to mention The Covenant Of Primus, much like IDW's continuity, has Galvatron as a separate entity from Megatron.
  • Soundwave is "Slendercon."
  • Given his habit of stealing artifacts off the Decepticon Warship, Smokescreen is sometimes referred to as "Smokey the Bandit."
  • "Bumblebeeyond" or "Friedlebee" for the newly voiced Bumblebee.
• Fandom-Specific Plot: It's not uncommon to find plots which involve the human characters somehow being turned into Cybertronians, usually through MECH or Decepticon experimentation whether purposely or not. Perhaps not coincidentally, these also involve pairing Jack/Arcee, Miko/Bulkhead, and/or June/Optimus now that the cross-species barrier has been removed.
• Fanfic Fuel: The fact that it's established at the beginning of the series that the Autobots have been active on Earth and secretly working with humans for some time opens up a lot of potential for fan fiction, such as what kind of missions the Autobots went on and if there are counterparts to the human allies of the previously established continuities (The Transformers, Transformers: Robots in Disguise, the Unicron Trilogy and Transformers: Animated) in this iteration of the franchise.
• Foe Yay Shipping:
  • Nothing needs to be said about Megatron and Optimus.
  • Bulkhead and Breakdown. Bulkhead even rescues Breakdown in one episode so they could have a rematch of their earlier fight. And Breakdown hesitates to fight after being rescued.
  • In "Tunnel Vision", Knock Out compliments Arcee on her "lovely features".
  • Airachnid's interactions with those she deems her "prey" have some creepy, creepy undertones. Her habit of stroking their cheeks with her razor-sharp claws before she gets to work does not help. The Japanese dub however takes "subtext" and turns it into just plain "text".
  • Starscream and Arcee have their moments.
• Friendly Fandoms: Fans of Prime and the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic crowd typically get along very well outside of fringe members. Helps that both shows were something of flagship series for The Hub, and regularly had gag crossovers in the channel's commercials.
• Growing the Beard:
  • The first season was pretty experimental in what kind of stories they were going to tell. Some felt the 5 part mini-series opener was fantastic, others disliked it for being derivative of past Transformers stories. Nearly every episode will switch back and forth from horror undertones ("Scrapheap," "Predatory") to human-centric drama ("Convoy," "Speed Metal," "Crisscross") to MacGuffin chases ("Deus Ex Machina," "Metal Attraction"). Fans would pick and choose which style or which episode they liked the most, with no real consensus. The first episode that everyone agreed on that was fantastic was "One Shall Fall" and the following "One Shall Rise" three-parter, which delves into the overall mythology and doesn't pull any punches with some shocking plot developments.
    • Some fans think that the second season, with its darker tone, much larger amount of twists and turns, increased focus on Optimus's past, and the story's propensity for killing off likable characters left and right make it an improvement over Season 1. Other fans... disagree. See Seasonal Rot.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • The Transformers: Animated version of Ratchet had a spotlight episode on his past, which involved a friend called Arcee and their little debacle involving Lockdown, a bounty hunter who essentially murders Transformers and steals their body parts as trophies. In this series, it's Arcee's time to have war flashbacks, with a villain that largely has the same kinks, except while Ratchet had the mercy of having his friend survive, albeit with no memory, Arcee's lost two of her friends, her best friend Tailgate being murdered right in front of her.
  • "Out of the Past" gives us two nasty knocks at already sobering events.
    • In "Sick Mind", Arcee is hesitant to use the psychic patch due to it being an out of body experience, but we later learn that it might stem from when Shockwave used the patch on her to strip information from her mind.
    • Remember how much the death of Cliffjumper scarred Arcee at the beginning of the series? Well, it turns out that he's the one who helped Arcee come out of her shell after Tailgate's death, making his death an even bigger slap in the face for Arcee. Thank Primus she found Jack soon afterward. That poor Transformer might have truly sealed herself off after that.
  • Ratchet becomes much more friendly to Wheeljack after the events of "Triage"... until he learns about him taking Miko along with him to enact revenge in "Hurt". "New Recruit" has him incredibly pissed off when the crew suggests getting Wheeljack's help. Fortunately, by "Darkest Hour", Ratchet seems to have put that behind him, especially given the events leading up to the Season 2 finale.
  • In "Operation Bumblebee Part 1", after Bumblebee gets his T-Cog stolen by MECH, the Autobots state that it can't be Megatron because even he "wouldn't be such a ghoul". Come "Alpha; Omega", he proves that he is, by grave-robbing the right arm of a deceased Prime in order to use a device that only a Prime can wield. He's had that arm ever since, at least until Optimus lopped it off.
  • The Japanese toyline comes with Mini-Cons called Arms Microns, and the dub of the series has "Arms Micron Theater" segments where the heroes' weapons secretly take on their Mini-Con forms and have wacky adventures while the big bots aren't looking. In the one for "Metal Attraction," three Autobot Mini-Cons formed the Star Saber, and took on the three Decepticon Mini-Cons who formed the Star Saber's Evil Counterpart, the Dark Matter Calibur, but they cockily underestimated their opponents and were knocked apart into their component Min-Cons when the two swords clashed. A whole season later, in the actual show, an Infinity +1 Sword called the Star Saber was used by Optimus. Megatron forged its evil counterpart, the Dark Star Saber, from Dark Energon. It shattered the real Star Saber in their first fight with the swords.
  • In the episode "Crisscross", MECH and Airachnid find (and later kidnap) June through the internet, utilizing a method that one security consultant from the firm HB Gary, and then later the NSA, would be revealed to utilize themselves.
    Silas: Ah, the mother lode.
    Airachnid: Government database?
    Silas: Social networking page.
  • Repaints in the toyline are already a sure thing for Transformers, but making Tailgate from the same mold as Cliffjumper? Way to rub salt in the wound there.
  • One of Ratchet's lines from the episode "Sick Mind" got this hard when Predacons Rising rolled around.
    Ratchet: I will not allow Optimus to pass knowing that Megatron will outlive him!
  • While fighting Shockwave, Ultra Magnus quips that he'd "rather have one good hand over one good eye any day." In the comics, an explanation given for why Shockwave has only one eye is because he was surgically mutilated in an attempt to torture him and ostracize him from society. Worse, Shockwave at one point threatens to make Starscream share that perception...
  • "Strong, Faster" shows Ratchet use of Synthetic Energon causing him to became an impulsive jerk, and by the end of the episode admits that he needed more testing. Much later in "Thirst" we learned from Knockout's testing that the more Synthetic Energon he used on a subject the faster they burned through it. Turns out the imitation of the Synthetic Energon was even more dangerous than the episode let on.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Knock Out was hinted at being gay during the show's run, but given a comment made at Botcon 2011, the show runners appeared hesitant to confirm him as gay. Several years later in The Transformers: Windblade, Knock Out is not only confirmed to be gay in the IDW-verse, but he's also got a Conjunx Endura in the form of a Prime-based Breakdown, who was always shipped with Knock Out during the show and was widely suspected to be more than friends with him. Now the two are an openly Official Couple, which is especially heartwarming given Breakdown's untimely death in season two.
• Hell Is That Noise: You do not want to hear an Insecticon screech when you can't tell where it's coming from, especially at night.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In The Fairly OddParents!, Timmy's dad was obsessed with a cool red car in "Engine Blocked". Now, he's voicing a Transformer who becomes one.
    • Don't forget that he wanted to beat his neighbor up with "Mighty Fighting Robot Action!", after modifying his car no less.
  • In "Darkness Rising Part 1", Bulkhead smashes something which Ratchet later identifies as a tool for analysis. He laments its damage, as he is unable to examine the Dark Energon that weakened Arcee. It being broken did more for him than it would have done intact: Optimus instantly identifies its animation as being down to Dark Energon, while Ratchet had earlier not known anything about it other than it being "highly concentrated to have affected Arcee so badly".
  • In "Out of the Past", Arcee mentions to Cliffjumper their objective requires stealth, not chatter, which is amusing given in Transformers: Fall of Cybertron Cliffjumper was the test subject for experimental cloaking technology.
  • In "Metal Attraction", Arcee uses a device that strongly resembles an Omni-Tool from Mass Effect. Cue the Omega DLC in Mass Effect 3, and Arcee's voice actress Sumalee Montano now voices Nyreen Kandros, a character who uses an actual Omni-Tool.
  • Due to Soundwave being The Blank, fans would often place trollfaces on his visor whenever Soundwave is asked to speak or owns somebody, such as these examples◊. Now in Minus One, Soundwave actually trolls the Autobots with this◊.
  • Many in the fandom would make jokes about Megatron being part shark due to his razor sharp teeth and aggressive demeanor. His new beast hunters toy design takes this to the extreme.
  • In one of the Ask Megatron commercials, the big guy answers the question who is his favorite Autobot by saying his favorite is Bumblebee; the Autobot who gets to stab him dead in the last episode before Predacons Rising.
  • "Primes Don't Party." 4 years later...
  • Getting offered the Matrix of Leadership may be Serious Business and too big a spoon for Smokescreen, but to viewers, the possibilty of him accepting is hilarious because of the awkward portmanteau names he could take (either "Smokimus" or "Screenimus" Prime).
  • "Partners" had Megatron chew out Airachnid for leaving Starscream with the Autobots since it could mean he could give them all the Decepticon's intelligence. He had no idea that Arcee attacking Starscream killed that possibility, but as turns out Airachnid's screw up would still cost the Decepticons thanks to Starscream occessional aid to the Autobots, which included giving up the location of the Decepticon space bridge, which helped the Autobots get Optimus' memories back.
  • This series has Starscream making a point of not displeasing Soundwave to save his skidplate. Skybound's 2023 Transformers titles shows us exactly what could've happened if Starscream didn't take these steps.
• Ho Yay:
  • With one line, Arcee added a new layer to Bulkhead and Wheeljack's relationship.
    "So, who's the boyfriend?"
  • Shippers had a field day when Knock Out mentioned that Breakdown helped him out with buffing his body.
  • A villainous one for Knock Out. He’s surprised to see Breakdown’s vital signs come back online and investigates, but is promptly treated to the sight of his former comrade being used as a puppet. It’s quite clear that he’s upset when he finds out it’s not actually Breakdown.
  • Thirst has a moment of this for Knock Out and Starscream. When holed up in Orion Pax's old lab aboard the Nemesis while hiding from Terrorcon Cylas, Starscream remarks to Knock Out that if this is indeed the end, he's proud to have served Lord Megatron with him. Knock Out replies that he's always admired Starscream's finish. Then there's an awkward, embarrassed pause.
    Starscream: ...Well then.
    Knock Out: Should be going.
  • Sierra tells Jack "Your mom (actually the female hologram Arcee uses in her motorcycle mode) looks good in leather."
• I Knew It!:
  • During the hiatus between "One Shall Fall" and "One Shall Rise, Part 1", ^note "One Shall Fall" aired in late August 2011 in Canada, over a month before its' American broadcast, meaning fans worldwide had to wait until "One Shall Rise"'s American premiere in October many viewers had guessed Unicron was either Earth, or somehow connected to it, due to the fact Dark Energon erupted from a volcano.
  • Given both Prime and Transformers: War for Cybertron are set in the Transformers Aligned Universe, Ratchet's recap of WfC confirms that the being credited as "Core" in the game is indeed Primus.
• Improved Second Attempt: Almost universally considered to be a better attempt at a grittier Transformers work than the Bayformers. It shares the premise of a darker war story, but lacks the juvenile toilet humor, over indulgent Gorn and comical retcons the movies had.
• Jerkass Woobie: Starscream is an unrepentantly evil, treacherous sadist, but it's hard not to feel sorry for him given the sheer amount of abuse he goes through throughout the series.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Arcee. Due to the Smurfette Principle, she's been shipped with nearly every male member in the cast, from Bulkhead, to Knockout, and even to Jack, despite Word of God's insistence that she's just a big sister to him.
• Like You Would Really Do It:
  • They've hinted that Bulkhead may die so many times (only for him to recover) that parts of the fandom have this reaction, even citing it as something of a Running Gag. There's nothing to say that he won't die later in the series, however, and "Toxicity" was perhaps the exception, given how the three month cliffhanger had everyone on the edge of their seats.
  • Raf's encounter with Dark Energon. TF Prime is dark, but it would never break Improbable Infant Survival. Raf wouldn't have died, especially on screen.
  • Every time Prime himself was in a life-threatening situation. Given the legacy of almost every single Optimus dying and being resurrected in some form going against the promise that any character that died would stay dead (or at least not resurrected in a form that would be themselves, such as a zombie), many people wondered exactly how Optimus would survive these to continue the legacy. They eventually ended up playing with this three times; first by having Optimus lose his memory, thus effectively "dying" as a character but not actually dying, making his "resurrection" easy. The second time they actually did kill Optimus, when he was caught in the base's explosion at the end of season 2. However he stayed dead for all of about 3 seconds before the MacGuffin revived him. Then they inverted the whole thing and actually kept their promise by having Optimus merging his own spark with the Allspark, and then jumping into Primus, meaning he's about as dead as you can get at that point. Given that was the end of the series, he's not likely coming back.
  • Double subverted. He comes back in the sequel.
  • Many fans had this reaction when there were rumors that Megatron would be Killed Off for Real... which just made it even more shocking when they actually went through with it. The finale film, however, ended up resurrecting him, and his existence continues.
• Magnificent Bastard: Megatron, Soundwave, Dreadwing, and Shockwave. For more details, see here.
• Memetic Badass:
  • Fowler. He ain't afraid of no Decepticon!
  • Soundwave, as of "One Shall Rise, Part 3".
• Memetic Molester: Airachnid, given her creepy interactions with those she calls her "prey".
  • The Japanese dub takes this and runs halfway to Cybertron and back with it. Instead of indigenous species, Japanese!Airachnid hunts cute boys.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Necromancer Megatron!
  • After the panel at Botcon, "rightfully huge" has become a term used to describe the series by fans who are hyped up for it.
  • The Vehicons have been commonly called "Steve"; the one Starscream smacks in particular. And now we have Butler Steve.
  • Jack's fire extinguisher.
  • Ratchet's tendency to scream out "(x) I needed that!" has began to stuck with the fans due to it being his catchphrase.
  • Everyone and their mothers has commented on Optimus’ very family unfriendly design from Seasons 1 to 2, specifically his aft.
  • "Hey, um, Optimus, you wanna see something funny?" "No?"
  • The Screamer-Mobile.
• Memetic Troll: Soundwave often gets this treatment due to often outwitting anyone who opposes him, and being a Silent Snarker.
• No Problem with Licensed Games: In a rather nice change of pace for Transformers games on Nintendo systems (which has been an issue since as early as 1986 with Transformers: Convoy no Nazo on the Famicom), the Wii, Wii U and 3DS spinoff game for Prime is regarded as a solid beat-em-up platformer with shooter elements, being generally intuitive and emulating the style of the show perfectly (though it helps that the writers, actors and composer for the show all worked on it).
• Paranoia Fuel: Soundwave. In this series, he's a voiceless, faceless character, which is creepy enough, but Starscream and the other Decepticons are terrified of him, due to the fact that he always has the ship under subtle surveillance... and it's not always the ship he's on, as he's a Scout, meaning he spies on much more than his own subordinates. The smackdown Soundwave delivers to Airachnid in the first season finale all but justifies that paranoia.
  • A one off instance with MECH, who use Jack's social networking page to track him down and kidnap his mother. People from both government organisations and civilian life, normally stalkers, have been doing this for years.
• Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading: Jack and Arcee are supposed to come across as Like Brother and Sister. Needless to say, all the Accidental Innuendo and Jack's She Is Not My Girlfriend moments don't help.
• Portmanteau Couple Name: A variant. The ship name for Knock Out and Breakdown is KOBD, which combines the first letter from each syllable of their names.
• Replacement Scrappy: Starscream rejoining Megatron at the end of season two and replacing Dreadwing, who was killed and immediately forgotten, as The Dragon was highly polarizing. While some were interested to see Megatron and Starscream's dynamic going forward, others were bewildered that Megatron would spare Starscream over Dreadwing, a far more loyal and overall competent soldier.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Not a specific character, but a type of character: the humans. In fact, Silas, in "Convoy", proves that humans in this series can be as formidable and dangerous as any Cybertronian.
  • Smokescreen gained a lot of fans after some excellent Character Development in Season 3.
  • A lot of people feel Bumblebee finally managed to escape his "Obligatory Movieverse Cash-In Expy" status in "Deadlock" and "Predacons Rising". Some fans insist he even manages to eclipse Movie!'Bee.
  • Miko made more responsible and caring for others in season 2 and later so many fans start to like her.
• Salvaged Story: A lot of fans were upset when Breakdown was killed off. The Japanese-exclusive comic series Unite Warriors takes strides to fix this. In the comic it's revealed that Breakdown's empty husk still continued to wander the Earth as an Energon-hungry zombie. This drew the attention of Unicron from another dimension, who resurrected Breakdown in a new body. After the events of the comic Breakdown returns to his own dimension and shares a joyful reunion with Knock Out.
• Seasonal Rot: The second season is considered the weakest of the three by a fair portion of the fanbase, with some outright hating it. Most of the seems to stem from killing off complex and/or interesting characters e.g. Breakdown and Dreadwing as well as wasted plot potentials like Bulkhead's injuries and various other plots that could have lasted longer. It also doesn't help that the second season made use of the tired treasure-hunting trope which plagued the Unicron Trilogy, where the heroes had to go hunting for the Omega Keys and generally go back-and-forth with the bad guys over a gimmick which had more than worn out its welcome from Transformers: Armada to Transformers: Cybertron.
• Shocking Moments: The "One Shall Fall/Rise" season 1 finale practically embodies this. Then the last few episodes of season 2 promptly upstaged it. The series finale manages to top both by not only killing a fan favourite character, but also have it turn out that Prime wasn't the hero of this story.
• Stoic Woobie: Optimus Prime. He doesn't show much emotion, and he's had a lot of bad stuff happen to him. According to Ratchet, every prime shoulders the burdens of those before him, and that Optimus was previously very much like Jack when he was Orion Pax. Poor Prime.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: The score isn't done by the films' Steve Jablonsky, but is clearly meant to emulate it (as well as some elements of Hans Zimmer's and James Newton Howards' scores for the new Batman films).
  • It also sound quite a bit like the main theme of 2009's Star Trek.
• Tainted by the Preview: Due to being somewhat bitter over the premature cancellation of Transformers: Animated and given how reminiscent it is to the live action movies, a lot of fans either couldn't get into the preview footage or actively hated it, despite plenty of fan pleasing moments such as Peter Cullen and Frank Welker.
• Take That, Scrappy!: This exchange from "Orion Pax, Part 1":
  Miko: "Whoa, that's a pretty good idea!"
  Arcee: "Oh, well, if Miko thinks it's a good idea..."
  • Also in "Legacy" and "Chain of Command", where she becomes a literal chew toy in the latter episode.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: One of the key problems with this show's level of realism is that - as in real life - War Is Hell and soldiers can go down anti-climactically. The following characters can be considered to have unused potential.
  • Breakdown, Hardshell, and Dreadwing are the biggest examples.
    • There are those who think Cliffjumper, Skyquake, and Makeshift got royally screwed, as well. The deaths of the former two, at least, play into the development of some of the characters. Also, Makeshift was killed off because his Story-Breaker Power couldn't be utilized in this manner of show without Badass Decay.
  • Seaspray, a Wrecker acknowledged by Bulkhead and Wheeljack, had the potential to be a cool Adaptational Badass. Yet we only see ten seconds of his ship before Dreadwing blows it up — in a flashback. At least Tailgate showed up onscreen.
  • MECH had a bridge dropped on it before they could have a proper climax to their storyline. Usually the toy company is responsible for such things, but they did produce the potentially toyetic Nemesis Prime and CYLAS.
  • Raf, partly as a result of him becoming out of being Demoted to Extra. While Jack got to become an honorary Prime, assist Smokescreen in assimilating to Earth, and grow as a leader and Miko got to become a Wrecker and master the Apex Armor, Raf was relegated to only being called on to solve computer problems. This despite the tantalizing mystery of how he understood Bumblebee, his rivalry with Soundwave, and that he was one of the few people Ratchet was willing to open up to. Admittedly, the writers said they didn't know what to do with him.
  • On a similar note, Arcee, her struggles with her past traumas, and her rivalry with Airachnid got a lot of focus in season one, but she becomes significantly less prominent in the other two seasons, even as her partner Jack continued to play an important role. By the end of the series, she's practically a background character who does almost nothing of note.
  • Vehicon troops and especially miners were given some amount of personality at times, but not one of them was ever named or focused upon in what could have been a Lower-Deck Episode giving insights on what is to be a lowly grunt in Megatron's army. This is even more poignant when the Insecticons, who were introduced much later, did get a Mook Lieutenant with two episodes centered around him.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • The Orion Pax arc to some. The show was hyped up as revolving around the theme of what it means to be a Prime, and when Optimus lost his memories, fans predicted that the rest of the show would deal with Orion re-learning to be a strong leader and Prime. However, at the end of the arc, Orion regains his memories, and the arc has absolutely no ramifications on Optimus' character.
  • The possibility of Starscream becoming an Autobot in "Partners". There's a surprising amount of fans who consider it a wasted opportunity that he never does a Heel–Face Turn at any point in the series, considering how Unintentionally Sympathetic he comes across and all the interesting plot points him defecting would open up.
  • The arc surrounding Bulkhead and his near-fatal injuries in Toxicity, mainly to those who expected him to die after the second mid-season climax.
  • By the end of "Thirst", Airachnid is transported to one of Cybertron's moons and is revealed to have been infected with vampirism. Nothing becomes of this.
  • The whole premise of the third season, Beast Hunters, where both Autobots and Decepticons worked on finding Predacon fossils and possibly bringing them back to life, led the viewer to believe that both Autobots and Decepticons would add more animal-based Transformers to their ranks, quite possibly including the Dinobots themselves. Mid-to-late season, Megatron decides to destroy all the Predacons in Shockwave's lab out of fear of Predaking seizing power one day, pretty much assuring the viewer will never see another animal-based Transformer on the show besides Predaking and making the third season's title "Beast Hunters" completely meaningless. While it is true that the movie Predacons Rising added Darksteel and Skylynx, in addition to focusing on a revived undead Predacon army, the series was practically over by then and the third season still didn't really live up to the "Beast" aspect of its name.
  • One of the reasons Breakdown's death is widely cited as one of, if not THE, low points of the show is that it resulted in multiple cases of this; his history/rivalry with Bulkhead went unexplained nor did it get a proper conclusion, his owing a favor to Starscream was never followed up on, his Anti-Villainous traits that hinted at a possible redemption arc ended up being superfluous, and his attraction to Airachnid was sunk in the most brutal way possible.
  • Bumblebee gets introduced as a capable Kid-Appeal Character eager to earn his stripes. He is an agile scout who in the late first season starts employing sneaky tactics, such as pretending to fall victim to the Immobilizer, as opposed to the usual gung-ho approach. He is foreshadowed to use a phase displacement device and later finds and even accidentally uses one. However, the phase shifter, along with the role of The Sneaky Guy, went to the newcomer Smokescreen, another agile young bot, and so did the arc of being Optimus Prime's would-be successor. Bumblebee instead was moved Out of Focus and wasn't developed much in terms of character arc or fighting style, right until the end.
  • Arcee and Airachnid's rivalry gets dropped midway through season 2 and is completely forgotten about for the rest of the series. Airachnid's final appearance on the show doesn't even feature Arcee at all.
  • The ending of season 2 seemed to be setting up an Unmasqued World, with the Decepticons openly invading Earth and laying waste to Jasper. Instead, it's revealed in Darkmount, NV that Fowler had the town evacuated (ergo, no one saw the Decepticons) and the existence of Transformers never becomes public knowledge before the end of the series.
• Too Cool to Live:
  • Cliffjumper. Incredibly badass? More one-liners in a five-minute appearance than most of the other cast? Voiced by the biggest (non-voice actor) star on the show? Yeah, not going to make it. Sorry, CJ.
  • Skyquake and Makeshift don't make it out of theirs introductory episodes alive, bringing the total number of these to three in the first eight episodes.
    • Word of God even cites this trope as the reason Makeshift dies, explaining that he was going to be a recurring character but was deemed overpowered for a villain appearing so early in the series.
  • Orion Pax/Amnesiac!Optimus doesn't technically die, but he only lasts four episodes.
  • Not to mention Breakdown, and later Hardshell - who dies after only two episodes.
  • The Nemesis comes to be and has its consciousness erased in the same episode.
  • C.Y.L.A.S., though after contacting Megatron, that was hardly unexpected.
  • Dreadwing.
  • Though not technically alive, the Decepticon's massive fortress, Darkmount, only lasts 5 episodes. Shame.
• Tough Act to Follow: Years after it finished airing, Prime continues to be held up as the peak of what Transformers could be. It should be no surprise that its sequel show, Transformers: Robots in Disguise (2015), was criticized for not measuring up to Prime.
• Ugly Cute: Scraplets!
• Unintentional Period Piece: It is by far the most modern incarnation of Transformers with social media and cell phones, but the cellphones are flip phones, which were clearly still quite popular in the early 2010's, right before the iPhone boom.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Starscream: Though he's a jerk that loves hurting others, one can't help but pity him. Megatron treats him like garbage even though Starscream has taken care of his Decepticon army for 3 years. (without them being detected by the Autobots we might add!) Then poor Starscream had a chance to redeem himself, but he foolishly sold himself out by revealing to Arcee he killed Cliffjumper aka her partner. Despite the first five episodes alone showing how much of a threat Starscream can be, he gets treated by everyone (including the writers) as a universal punching bag. It doesn't help that the writers have exaggerated his cowardliness more and more as the show goes on. And that's not even getting into the fact that most of the times he's a jerk, it's towards people who are either his enemies or have heaped considerable abuse on him. As seen with Arcee, Knock Out, and in the third season, Megatron, he responds genuinely well to those who do him a good turn. Even his abuse of the Predacons can fall under this, as while he does insult Predaking, most of that comes when he's under the impression that Predaking's just a non-sapient animal who can't understand what he's saying. So, from his POV, when Predaking disobeys his orders, all he sees is a large, dangerous animal that inexplicably refuses to do what he tells it to do.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Miko, mainly in these episodes: "Rock Bottom", "T.M.I." and "Hurt"... We are supposed to feel bad for her, when she's crying about Bulkhead being hurt, but in "Rock Bottom" and "T.M.I.", he got hurt because of her reckless behavior which she never learns from. And in "Hurt", both she and Wheeljack want to destroy the insecticon that nearly killed Bulkhead, even though we were told previously in the series that revenge wasn't the answer...
  • Megatron post-Heel–Face Turn. We're meant to feel sympathy for him in Predacons Rising since he spends most of the film being tortured and having his body taken over by Unicron, but given all the war crimes he perpetrates throughout the series (including attempting to genocide all life on Earth twice), plenty fans believe he's Beyond Redemption and doesn't deserve to be let off.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Several people thought that Soundwave was a she due to having a slender frame and high-heels like Starscream but never spoke, though the characters in-universe refer to him by masculine pronouns, and when he talks...
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Face it, this series may have stylized character designs, and it might not be Industrial Light & Magic, but is it gorgeous to look at and thankfully averts most of the faults that most CG TV shows have (helped by the fact that the company hired for the series also did the CGI in The Sky Crawlers). Season 2 has been getting even better in terms of its backgrounds. While the backgrounds in Season 1 were still good, the Nemesis is given even more detail and there are new settings such as dockyards, prairies and even Manhattan at one point.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Even if it is strictly robot violence, most of the stuff they have here would have gotten a TV-14 rating if it were live-action. This is on top of covering of some themes- most notably drug abuse (by virtue of Synthetic Energon) and even suicide in Predacons Rising.
  • Hell, its even the first series where humans are heavily implied to have died off screen due to the shows events, with Silas being a notable exception, his death was there for all to see!
  • What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Roberto Orci once called Prime the "adult Tranformers story" that he always wanted to create. It shows.
• Win Back the Crowd: Some fans of the franchise tended to be critical of Frank Welker's performance as Megatron in the G1 cartoon, finding it too screechy and not very intimidating, which wasn't helped by the voice generally not being modified in various tie-ins for the live action films where he played the role. In Prime, Welker's voice for the character was completely overhauled to be lower and more guttural, which makes Megatron more intimidating, and as Welker himself admitted, gives more emotional range to the character.
• The Woobie:
  • Cliffjumper, all the way. Being introduced as a fun, cool and thrill-loving figther, he suddenly gets slaughtered in the most brutal and gut-wrenching way you've ever seen an Autobot die before.
  • Raf. This is first showcased in "Darkness Rising, Part 4", after encountering a rather harrowing battle between the Autobots and Decepticons. While similar cartoons would have kids act like Miko, Raf acts very much like how a normal kid would have in that situation: scared, confused, and withdrawn. That's not even getting into what happens to him later in the season.
    • Bumblebee has his Woobie moments as well, particularly during the "Operation: Bumblebee" two-parter. Fans were calling for Silas's blood after viewing the teasers.
    • Miko becomes this during the arc surrounding Bulkhead's injuries in the second season.
    • During the second season, Smokescreen makes some pretty rash decisions and is only just grasping the fact that War Is Hell. That said, the way he is chewed out, particularly by Arcee, can come across as harsh considering he is a newcomer and is genuinely apologetic for his mistakes.
  • Iron Woobie: Arcee.
  • Optimus had a brief moment during "Operation Bumblebee, Part 1" where Megatron taunts him for helping the Decepticon cause when Megatron had earlier taken advantage of Optimus's amnesia to find the locations of potential weapons scattered around Earth. His guilty expression as Megatron thanks him is enough to tug at the heartstrings.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Breakdown, arguably. Despite being a tad boisterous and still quite violent, he's a Benevolent Boss, Anti-Villain, Reasonable Authority Figure and more or less the Token Good Teammate to the 'Cons. His death at the hands of Airachnid did nothing but solidify this opinion.
    • Despite his extreme Draco in Leather Pants status in the fandom, Starscream of all people is this to a certain extent. Megatron is fairly abusive to the Seeker and much of his fears are actually pretty justified. For instance, when Megatron is trapped in a collapsed mine, he rightly realizes that Megatron would simply blame him for the matter, no matter what would happen. It may very well be that a lot of his behavior is simply based off a combination of "What would Megatron do?" and survival.
    • While Knock Out had also been the subject of Draco in Leather Pants for some time, he truly earns this status in "The Human Factor" when he imagines he'll see Breakdown again, only to find Silas gloating while merged with his best friend's corpse.
    • In Predacons Rising, freaking Megatron of all people becomes this owing to his torture.
  • Dreadwing falls into this when he finds his brother's corpse has been desecrated through his resurrection as a Dark Energon zombie, but can't do anything about it because Megatron just tells Starscream to keep quiet about it. That finally spurs Dreadwing to turn against Starscream in a fit of rage that ends with Megatron blasting a huge honking hole in the Decepticon before he can strike a killing blow and Dreadwing joining his brother in death.

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