Blu-ray Review: Transformers Prime: Predacons Rising
Transformers Prime: Predacons Rising is a satisfactory conclusion to the three-season series of Transformers Prime which started with the awesome mini-series Transformers Prime: Darkness Rising. The third season of the series was called Transformers Prime: Beast Hunters and started with the decepticons victory over the autobots at the end of the second season. The autobots base was destroyed, Optimus Prime was presumed dead, and the autobots were scattered around the globe. This season also introduced a cool new monstrous transformer called a predacon called Predaking which has the alternate form of a huge dragon and the strength at least equal to Megatron.
Now, in Transformers Prime: Predacons Rising, we find that the decepticons have been all but destroyed. Megatron is dead, the decepticons are scattered, and the autobots attempt to bring new life back into their home world of Cybertron by seeking out the AllSpark. Of course, Megatron has been dead before and that never seemed to stop him! This time his resurrection comes from Unicron, similar to in The Transformers: The Movie when Unicron turned the near-death Megatron into Galvatron, but unfortunately we never get to hear him called Galvatron. Anyway, in Megatron absence, his most trusted ally, Shockwave, seeks out the fossils of ancient Cybertronian dinosaurs in order to build an army of predacons.
After being attacked by two new predacons, Skylynx and Darksteel, the autobots seek out the Predaking to ask for his help in tracking down his kin so everyone can live together peacefully, but Predaking is still pissed at the autobots for killing all of the predacons that Shockwave made back on Earth, so they get no help from him. So there's quite a bit going on in this film and all the threads do come together and get tied up by the end. It was a enjoyable movie and a well-done conclusion to the series, but for me it didn't have the awe of the original Darkness Rising miniseries or of The Transformers: The Movie.
The art and animation were excellent, as you'd expect if you've seen the show, especially on blu-ray. I'm glad they brought Unicron back and had him alter Megatron, but I was disappointed that the predacons didn't combine into one giant robot like they did in the original series and I would have liked to have seen every tackle a full planet-sized Unicron. Another thing that is nice about the film is that it could really be a stand alone movie, as I don't think you need to have any knowledge of the show to understand what's going on and get invested into these characters. There are a few other aspects I'd like to mention but I won't because I don't want to spoil too much.
There is a bonus behind-the-scenes featurette included which is cool. It's called A Look at Polygon Pictures and shows us the collaboraton between the Hasbro people and the Japanese Polygon studio that did the animation for the entire Transformers Prime series. It's good but I think it could have been longer, with a bit more depth.
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