Transformers – The Reel World

More (And Less!) Than Meets The Eye – Epilogue: Lost Light Cut Plans & Alternate Ending

On the day of their interview with James Roberts, Matt discovered he’d been sitting on a goldmine of juicy secrets concerning original plans for Lost Light. With James’ blessing, we’re breaking them down now.

From minor tidbits to major revelations, we pull back the curtain a little on what might have been had Lost Light not been cut short. If this whets your appetite, make sure to pick up the final volumes of James’ notebooks in 2024, which will go into even greater detail.

More (And Less!) Than Meets The Eye – Episode 15: Interview with James Roberts

After dissecting his books for 14 weeks, Ben & Matt had the privilege of sitting down with James Roberts to discuss all things More Than Meets The Eye/Lost Light.

From the origins of his Transformers fandom (and how it differs from Ben & Matt’s!), to his influences when building the cast, to incredibly specific questions about Mnemosurgery and Empurata, we tried to cover as much ground as possible in an hour. Don’t worry, we made sure to ask ‘Why do you hate Beast Wars, James?!?’

More (And Less!) Than Meets The Eye – Episode 14: Lost Light Issues 13-25

Just because the crew of the Lost Light appear to be dead, doesn’t mean this is the end! Death? Sparkeaters? Infinites? An Evil Alliance of Past Foes? A Planet-Sized Transformer? Unknowable Ancient Beings Trying to Eat the Universe? Pfft. How about a challenge next time?!?

More (And Less!) Than Meets The Eye – Episode 13: Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

TRUK NOT MONKEE! The movie part of our journey is finally at an end as we discuss the awkward fit of the Maximals into what is clearly a soft Transformers reboot… or should that be the awkward fit of the Transformers into what is clearly a Beast Wars movie?

Plus mileage on Pete Davidson as Mirage, some sad Peter Cullen truths, the return of blah human protagonists, and the future of a Hasbro Cinematic Universe.

More (And Less!) Than Meets The Eye – Episode 12: Lost Light Issues 1-12

New Name! New Issue 1! Same old lovable crew!

We discuss why Rodimus is purple now, whacky adventures in a parallel universe, IDW’s controversial history with gender in Transformers, the nature of grief, and a much-lauded mutiny.

More (And Less!) Than Meets The Eye – Episode 11: Bumblebee

For ten weeks we have suffered, but at long last it’s time for an Actually Good movie! We could tell you about our discussion of Travis Knight’s rap career, the much-lauded opening, the best human character in the series, our mildly heated 80s nostalgia debate and how much they get out of no-name villains…

But really, The Thing Is… He’s Just A Lil Guy.

More (And Less!) Than Meets The Eye – Episode 9: Transformers: The Last Knight

It took 9 weeks, but Ben & Matt finally disagree about the quality of a movie. For Matt, The Last Knight is one of the worst things he has ever seen in his entire life and potentially permanently altered his brain chemistry. Ben contends that while it’s bad, it’s not only not the worst Transformers movie, but not even the second worst!

They discuss Cogman, ‘Hot Rod’ (it ain’t right what they done to our boy), sozzled Merlin, poor Gemma Chan, awkwardly smushing two ideas together (again!) and generally become delirious.

More (And Less!) Than Meets the Eye – Episode 8: MTMTE Issues 34-44

In which we discuss The Ethics of Withholding Medical Treatment, The Ethics of Killing Baby Robot Hitler, The Ethics of Charisma Parasites, The Ethics of Dated Sitcoms, and the Ethics of War (As Expressed Through Flowers)

Plus Ben tries to break Matt by mentioning too many characters from books we aren’t reading, and it works better than he could have imagined at the time!

More (And Less!) Than Meets the Eye – Episode 7: Transformers: Age of Extinction

Time to dust off one of our favourite debates on this podcast network: Is it worse to be Boring or Bad?

Michael Bay submits his evidence to the latest hearing, Age of Extinction, which literally has another movie tacked onto the back of it. Hard to believe a movie could be Bad OR Boring when it features Dinobots, Bounty Hunters and Stanley Tucci, but here we are!

More (And Less!) Than Meets the Eye – Episode 6: MTMTE Issues 17-33

Be not afraid of the huge number of issues covered in this episode, as a big chunk of it belongs to Dark Cybertron, the mostly irrelevant crossover event we break down in under 10 minutes.

On either side of that we discuss Huge Secrets about Magnus & Skids, Pharma’s horrifying antics, a mockery of a trial, the Lost Light’s new crew members, and the curious case of a vanishing starship.