New Transformers Stuff

According to seibertron.com and tformers.com, Transformers is getting some fresh entertainment with a new animated series called Transformers: Prime. This new show marks a new chapter in the rather schizophrenic Transformers franchise (the changes in the franchise are MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE), as the door to the rather over-extended Revenge of the Fallen line comes to a close. Very few details have been revealed about this show, other than the fact that actor Jeffery Combs will be portraying the legendary Autobot Medic named Ratchet, and that the show will air on Hasbro's new network The Hub. The Hub is Hasbro's joint venture with Discovery Communications, and presently exists as the network Discovery Kids. The Hub will start off with a heavy focus on programming from Hasbro's extensive library of kids' entertainment. I would suspect that the success of the two Transformers movies, and the mild success of the recent G.I. Joe film has emboldened Hasbro to push further into the multimedia arena - now having a movie production wing and a television network to call its own.

We'll see...

There are only two Transformers series that I remember as having any true substance and staying power - The Beast Era (composed of 3 seasons of Beast Wars, and 2 seasons of Beast Machines) and Transformers Animated (the most recent Transformers cartoon series that had excellent character development and story, and was painfully short-lived). I hope Hasbro doesn't decide to do Transformers: Prime for a year or so, and then decide that the franchise needs to take yet another new direction.

I for one feel that the franchise is becoming far too over-saturated with new reboots, and reinventions. The core of what Transformers is is getting lost in this goopy soup of marketing/merchandising overload.

Hasbro, stick with one thing and find a creative way to keep it going for a few years, and allow your "audience" to get attached to the characters/figures for a while.

I mean, think about it: DOES ANYBODY EVEN GIVE A SHIT IF OPTIMUS PRIME DIES ANYMORE? HE JUST COMES BACK IN 50 DIFFERENT REINCARNATIONS, OR A WHOLE NEW SERIES.