Hasbro and Takara continued their productive partnership with Transformers: Cybertron which ran from 2005-2007. Interestingly, in Japan, Cybertron was not only named Galaxy Force but was also treated as a fresh series. However in the US, by linking story elements and imagery from Armada and Energon, it was presented as the final part of the Unicron trilogy. This series, like Armada and Energon before it, ran for four “seasons” and fifty-two episodes. The story is based upon the impending doom of multiple worlds, Cybertron first and foremost, due to an enormous black hole that was created when Unicron was destroyed. To save not only Cybertron, but Earth too, the Autobots must find the four Cyber Planet Keys and the Lock they go to. The challenge of finding and obtaining the keys is made only more difficult by the Decepticons, who also want to find the keys, but obviously not for the greater good.
The series begins with the Autobots forced to leave Cybertron due to the threat of the black hole. They come to Earth and attempt to disguise themselves as vehicles, but it isn’t long at all before they’re discovered by three kids: Coby, Bud, and Lori. These stumble upon the injured Landmine, who was hurt moments before taking a space bridge to Earth. The trio are kind and helpful to Landmine, and actually assist in repairing him, and thus begins the partnership of the Autobots and these three kids that would play a key role throughout the series. There are episodes where the kids do not appear, which I thought was a plus. So most any Transformers fan, casual or hardcore, can surmise the routine from here and through the next fifty episodes — the Autobots, with help from their young human friends, will constantly battle Megatron and his forces. Meanwhile the search for the Keys takes the adventure to a variety of locations, from Velocitron, the strange planet whose inhabitants are all about speed and racing, to the Giant Planet late in the series. A lot of cool characters are introduced along the way, such as Thundercracker, Snarl, Scattorshot, Leobreaker, and others.
The animation style of Cybertron is comprised of both CGI for the Transformers and traditional animation for the human characters and backgrounds. This takes a couple of episodes to get used to, as did Optimus Prime’s re-designed face, but it isn’t long before you accept them and move on. I thought Garry Chalk did a nice job as Optimus’ voice, too. Most of other voiceovers are great as well, but I would give special mention to the instrumental part of the theme song, which is very good and catchy. Specifically, I’m referring to the theme song by Shinji Kakijima (“The Future of You and I”) which is used for the first twenty-seven episodes. Anyway, image and sound quality are probably exactly what you expect: the original 4:3 frame and stereo audio. As with the other Transformers sets from Shout!, this is sufficient. No subtitles or extra features are included, which I suspected, but would have been happy to have been wrong. Menus and disc labels are consistent throughout the set; the disc labels mimic the box art. On each disc, a simple ‘Play All’ or ‘Episodes’ option is available. The discs are stored in a double-thick sized case, with discs 1 and 7 on the inside covers and the others attached to ‘pages.’ An episode listing spans the front and back inside covers, along with a cool image of Vector Prime.
Personally, as I continue to work my way through the Unicron Trilogy, I’m finding Cybertron to be a more enjoyable series, even if just by a little bit, than Energon, and at least on par with Armada. Overall, it’s a fun conclusion to a lengthy trilogy — if you haven’t seen it yet, don’t expect anything too earth-shattering, enjoy these twenty minute episodes for what they are, and you’re sure to enjoy yourself.
To the summary…