Transformers: EarthSpark Trailer Drops

I do like the logo…as modern logos go anyway. The early 2000s style is still my favorite.

I’ve been waiting for a proper trailer to finally get into this series, and one just dropped…months ago but in my defense I’ve brought up how bad my YouTube backlog is and it isn’t on any of the channels I currently follow, along with some preview footage for the new Transformers: EarthSpark, the older kids Transformer show. (I’m guessing BotBots is the little kids show, replacing the Rescue Bots sub-franchise, and I don’t know if Legacy, the current adult collectors line, is getting a show.) The show features two Earth kids bonding with a pair of Transformers and being drawn into their conflict. This is less Transformers Prime and more like Rad, Carlos, and Alexis with the Mini-Cons High Wire, Grindor, and Sureshock from Transformers: Armada.

We’ve see teasers but the following YouTube Shorts videos seems to be a better look at the series to come. The video after that features a five-minute preview of EarthSpark plus another trailer that gives us some idea about the show. So let’s a look.

It sure seems okay. It’s a new show with a new style, but I am disappointed that the new Transformers have no discernable alternate mode. I don’t want the character models to be flooded with vehicle “kibble” mind you, but I like when I can have some idea what they transform into, or at least that they can transform at all. I’m not seeing that with Thrash and Twitch in most of these previews but the poster does show that they do scan a vehicle of some kind eventually. We don’t see a lot of the kids, but the mom looks badass. Let’s look at the second short.

So mom’s a badass (possibly a cop or other legal official) but dad appears to be a total doofus. I don’t think we’ve had a decent father in the whole franchise apart from Sparkplug Witwicky in the original show from 1984! No, that’s not completely true. You had Chief Burns from Rescue Bots but he was the head of a family of rescue workers so he kind of had to be. Kicker’s dad? Scatterbrained, as was the scientist from Rescue Bots. Russel’s dad from Robots In Disguise? A bit better but still a free spirit and a bit of a joke at times. If we see a parent otherwise we really don’t get a good enough look at them as the kids tend to run off with the Autobots. I guess we could count Star Saber from Victory, but for the most part dads get the short end in this franchise and this one may be the worse of the bunch. Hopefully he makes up for it, but I can certainly understand being a Bumblebee fanboy. 🙂

Finally we have five minutes of the show, where we see the kids bond with Thrash and Twitch. It at least gives us an idea of the style and tone of the show.

So what can we tell? Well, not all of the Autobots and Decepticons have the usual faction symbols, which is odd. Apparently people know about Transformers and Bumblebee must be pretty famous on Earth. We have another human villain, which I’m not all that fired up about as he appears to be the main antagonist instead of Megatron and the Decepticons. I don’t mind a recurring threat like MECH in Prime or Doctor Morocco in Rescue Bots but as the main threat it shouldn’t be humans. We appear to be off in the woods (so confirm mom is a forest ranger I guess), which goes into that one problem with computer-animated shows: being in the middle of nowhere. This saves computing power in that cities only get used rarely but it also means very few people outside of the allies and villains, who would normally be working in secret, but again people seem to know who Transformers and specifically Bumblebee are.

Not sure what I think about the humans. While the family here may be black for…modern social reasons…I’m totally okay with it. There haven’t been that many people of color among the Autobot allies. Sure, the white guy is the villain, but I can count the number of non-white allies without too much strain so for once modern social reasons are a good thing. This is a rarity in these radical days so enjoy it while you can. Apparently Robbie is going to be much like Russell in Robots In Disguise in that he really doesn’t want to be away from the city until he learns he can be friends with giant alien robots that turn into vehicles. We also learn that he and his sister Mo (short for…?) like to go on adventures…so you’d think this would be open ground for new adventures. They seem okay, though Mo’s eyes are larger than many anime characters while Robbie and their parents have pretty much normal looking eyes so she looks a bit weird compared to the rest of her family or this “Mandroid” character.

Transformers: EarthSpark debuts November 17th on Paramount Plus and “sometime this fall” on Nickelodeon. That means when I finally get to review it most of the internet will have already seen it. Of course.