Transformers: War For Cybertron Trilogy’s first installment, Siege, explores the early history of the Transformers and their war for Cybertron and delivers an epic story while highlighting the humanities of these characters and the overall casualties of war.
Transformers: War For Cybertron Trilogy: Siege is an all-new Netflix original anime brought to life by Rooster Teeth Productions and Hasbro’s Allspark Pictures production company using Netflix’s 3D CGI animation style. The story focuses on the early days of the war between the Autobots and the Decepticons, led by Optimus Prime and Megatron respectively. The once brothers-in-arms, now turned enemies battle rigorously for what they believe is the freedom of Cybertron.
While this debut season is rather short, the series pulls you in right from the moment it starts. Showcasing not only the brewing turmoil between the two factions and the start of their war. But also the lengths each faction is willing to go to in order to protect themselves and what their respective leaders represent and believe in. This is a storyline that many fans have pleaded for, ever since Transformers made their live-action debut on the big screen, and pleaded for even more after we got a glimpse of it in the Bumblebee solo film.
Although it’s not fully explored in live-action, this trilogy has been created to explore those dark and trying times on Cybertron where the Transformers, both Decepticons and Autobots face extinction. The series does a great job at showcasing what makes each faction tick, while also showcasing the extents both factions will go to in order to preserve their ideals and essentially save themselves from extinction.
On one side you have the Decepticons, lead by Megatron. Who wants to find the Allspark and use its power to eradicate the Autobots and turn them into unwilling Decepticons. One the other side you have the Autobots, led by Optimus Prime, who wants to use the Allspark and remove it from the planet Cybertron to end the war once and for all. Unfortunately for both parties, things don’t go as they planned and there are many many casualties during this grand conflict.
One of the great things about this series is the backstory we are given to the characters that most people out there might only know from the live-action films. We meet Bumblebee before he joins the Autobots, and see how he actually becomes an Autobot thus eventually becoming Optimus Prime’s right hand. We see Starscream rise in the rankings thus becoming the leader of the Decepticon Seekers. We see Decepticons like Jetfire and Impactor both join the good fight and fight alongside the Autobots in order to save their people.
In the live-action films, we get to see an older Jetfire and we see him explain how and why he left the Decepticons to join the Autobots but here in the anime we actually see that transition play out from start to finish. Additionally, we get to see the rich history of Cybertron from The Guardians to Ultra Magnus; and a long list of other Transformers we have only seen in the 80s animated series or comics, but never got to see in the live-action films.
One of my only gripes with the series though is that the animation at times was a bit choppy in terms of how the Transformers themselves moved on the screen. While we also get a lot of action in these six episodes, there’s no real grandiose fight sequence outside of the one we get in the finale which was really great.
Overall, despite my little gripes which will seem like severe nitpicks to whoever reads this review (totally understand). The series holds up and is thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish and it provides a massive load of nostalgia for those who love the Gen-1 version of Transformers. This is a series I highly recommend. I cannot wait for Transformers: War For Cybertron Trilogy – Kingdom
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