Wednesday 12 July 2017

Transformers Marathon II; Rescue Bots: Aww, no love for Defensor

Fun fact, was going to do a Rescue Heroes joke until I saw that one of them was Blades.

Like seriously, all you're missing is a motor cycle and an Ambulance, though I think swapping Groove out for a bulldozer would be a good idea. Combiner Wars swapped him with a Swat truck after all



So on one end, you have Transformers Prime and RiD 2015 to serve the action focused version of Transformers. On the other hand, here we have more slice of life show that leans more towards slice of life? Well, as close to it as you can get with Transformers? That lasted longer then G1?! I'm going to say this now, this isn't going to be a proper review, not because its a bad show, but its because if I was too old to be watching some of the things I've reviewed, then I'm WAY to old for this one.

This is a show targeted towards preschool kids, standards are different for them as it is a show that leans heavily on the messages that need to be taught. And for what it is, its ok. I can't really judge either way as I'm not a parent, but it does do its job. It's bright, its not violent (at least no more then Rescue Heroes, I said I wouldn't make the joke, I said nothing about making comparisons)), its lesson focused. Its for its target demographic. So, that was fast... what am I going to review now then to fill up this post? How about the Aligned Continuity?

So what is the Aligned Continuity? According to Hasbro, War for Cybertron, Fall of Cybertron, Rise of the Dark Spark (all three I have plans to get to), along with the shows Prime, Rescue Bots and RiD 2015 are all in the same continuity, and by continuation the Bayformers movies because Rise of the Dark Spark is half WFC/FOC, half Age of Extinction. I'm taking out tie in media like the TF:Prime Game and the novels for this. Does it work? In pieces. While I will save full reviews of the Cybertron games, I will say that overall they work in a continuity, I can believe these three games live in a similar universe (to an extent, but that is for another time). They don't however work well with the shows, and even the shows themselves don't really work together.

The big issue is Rescue Bots, not because of continuity, but because of audiences. Prime and RiD 2015 do work well together, there are enough threads for me to believe they're in the same universe. But the same can be said for Rescue Bots (minus one big one, being that its pretty hard to believe no one on the island doesn't think that the alien robots are aliens? What about the tourists?). The problem is that Rescue Bots isn't after the same audience as Prime and RiD, its after preschoolers, and when you start to bring over characters between the shows, you start to get some concerned parents. While I doubt anyone who Rescue Bots is targeting would look up Prime and RiD 2015, I have a strong feeling some in the audience of Prime and RiD would look into Rescue Bots when you have characters like Blur show up in RiD. To look at Rescue Bots from the perspective of someone past Primary School by almost a good 10 years, the show isn't good for older audiences. I'm not a fan of the animation, and the writing is very much preschool styles of writing. I'm all for it having the audience that it has, it actually makes me wish I had this when I was in preschool. But, it should have stayed its own thing. I am dragging on at this point so I'll end the Transformers Marathon II: Revenge of the Bay there. Come Sunday though, I feel like doing some more racing, and I think something deserves a follow up review.

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