Transformers: War For Cybertron Trilogy - Chapter 1 Siege (2020) Review

I am not as well versed in Transformers lore as maybe I should be so this animated show Transformers War For Cybertron intrigued me and I have now watched the first chapter called Siege and here is my review for it. The premise of the show sees on the planet Cybertron two factions The Autobots and Decepticons battle to ensure the planet and their races survival. 

Main Character

Optimus Prime is an iconic character in pop culture and he is a large part of this show and I thought he was an interesting character. This show takes place early in his run as leader of the autobots so this is the point where we see a bit of a doubtful prime and you see how the war has affected him and that he struggles at time. He shows moments of being the leader that we know and his character is interesting when you compare him to Megatron the central antagonist. Megatron is super interesting here, he starts off as yes an antagonist but one who just wants to see the war end and with morals but as the chapter progresses you see how much he struggles and how is persona and mind are affected and change him as a character. The show does a great job of making these two main characters 3 dimensional and way more interesting then they were in the live action films. 

Supporting Characters

Bumblebee is here and they do some different things with his character, I mean he isn't even an autobot here which was surprising to see. It did a good job in showing that not everybody belongs to one of the factions and that the war really affects everybody on the planet. I mean if you know the character of Bumblebee you know where his arc goes but it is handled well. The characters Jetfire and Starscream and I liked how there personalities clash and you see that even in a united force that these people don't always agree and that makes it more interesting then if they just all followed the same hymn sheet. There is a character called Elita 1 and at first I did not like her, she questions Optimus pretty much all the time and it became annoying, but when you consider where Optimus is in terms of his development and the fact that there is clearly some history there it actually makes sense and does a good job of adding a female character here. 

Story

The story is interesting here, it portrays the two factions in really interesting ways. Maybe the heroes aren't flawless and maybe the villains aren't complete evil, this complexity makes for an interesting story and makes you think about the characters. Though this show does suffer from what the films do and that there are so many transformers you are meant to care about that it becomes difficult to track and you get attached to some and some not as much. Also this is a specific point, but there is something that happens in the finale that feels very forced and comes out of nowhere that felt very poorly written which hurt the overall story. 

Script

The script here is good, it deals with themes that you wouldn't expect from an animated show that maybe could be designed for children. The drama works and seeing the different character arcs just shows how well this show is written. 

Style

The style looks pretty great, it is darker and more intense then I expected which made this feel very different. The character and world models are great to even the sound when they transform which is exactly how it should be. But I did thought maybe the action scenes could have been better made, they are not terrible it is just there is nothing that stands out. I also think that this show could have done with a few more episodes to make you care more about some of the story arcs. 

Overall

Overall, this is a great animated show, it is a unique style and does enough to keep you interested throughout. Even if you are not a fan of Transformers the this could be worth a watch as I really enjoyed this and recommend it. 

Rating - 8/10