For our listeners’ convenience, we’ve provided a transcript of our interview with the showrunner of the upcoming Netflix series Transformers: War For Cybertron, F.J. DeSanto. You can view the video version above, or listen to the audio version here. The interview transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
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Interview Transcript:
TransMissions (Charles): We’re pleased to welcome F.J. DeSanto, showrunner of the upcoming Netflix show Transformers: War For Cybertron. The show is planned as a trilogy of multi-episode seasons to match the current Hasbro War For Cybertron toy lines. Part One, Siege, will be debuting this year. He previously worked on the Transformers Combiner Wars, Titans Return, and Power Of The Primes animated web series, and is now creating a brand new chapter in the Transformers mythos. Thank you for joining us.
F.J. DeSanto: Thank you for having me. This is a real treat to be here.
TM (Charles): It’s our pleasure. We’re excited to talk to you. Are you a longtime Transformers fan? And what was it about Transformers that drew you to the franchise?
FJD: Yeah, I started at the right age, you know, for when it initially came out. And so I was very much an owner of the initial wave of G1, in particular in the Marvel Comics, and the original G1 series, especially the ‘86 movie.
And to be quite honest, for a long time, that was my scope of Transformers and I grew up a manga and anime fanatic so I had this sort of romantic thing for what Takara Tomy were doing in Japan. Like oh, there are different versions of characters and this came out of Japan and you know, like the animation is different in the movie versus all that stuff. So, you know, when I got involved with the franchise I had a lot of catching up to do. In terms of, you know, where the various series had gone, I only had a very casual knowledge of Transformers, the continuity outside of G1. G1 I knew pretty well, just by almost osmosis of childhood and having the toys and again, it being sort of imprinted into your brain at the right age.
I hate to say it, because, you know, people will attack me for it. But I wouldn’t say I was a longtime fan and watched all of it, but I had a real love of G1 when it came out and the stuff produced in Japan. Really, for me, the ‘86 movie was the big thing because it was like, all the things I loved about anime, and it’s drawn beautifully and had epic things like Unicron and weird things like Galvatron. And, like even watching it now you’re sort of like, this is amazing how this got made. You know?
TM (Charles): Yeah.
FJD: So it combined a lot of things that I loved, which was anime, robots, you know, sci-fi in this sort of hidden world of these guys was always very, very interesting to me.
TM (Charles): Awesome. Yeah. I mean, I think we all grew up around the same time and G1 was really imprinted for all of us. So yeah, we’re right there with you. So how did you get the showrunner job for the War For Cybertron trilogy?
FJD: Well, I got hired to be a writer/producer on Combiner Wars. And then I was off that for a bit and sort of came back towards the end of Titans Return to replace the previous showrunner. So creatively I didn’t have much input on that, but sort of just managed the production with my supervising producers, a guy named Matt Murray, who’s still with me, and then we did Power Of The Primes. And, I sort of, you know, I come from a live action background. I used to work for the executive producers of the Batman franchise and things like that, like, my whole sort of background is comics to film and stuff like that. So I sort of got thrown into animation in a really good way.
So I was like, you know, I think we were talking about this before, the Prime Wars was like graduate school for me, like learning how to produce Transformers animation. And then for the new one, we were still working on Prime Wars or Power Of The Primes, and I had met with Netflix, they had an anime group and, Hasbro really wanted to do something bigger than what we were doing with Prime Wars because they were smaller episodes. They were digital, for YouTube and stuff. And then everybody, Rooster Teeth which at the time was Machinima, it just all sort of luckily came together and Hasbro had already told me sort of like, “Hey, here’s what we’re doing the War For Cybertron trilogy,” this was like two years ago, and I sort of just out of my own excitement went, “Well, I would do this!” and sort of just pitched them a rough idea of what the three seasons could be and everybody got excited about it. And then I had relations to Polygon Pictures in Japan, the animation studio, they were doing stuff like Star Wars Rebels, and they’d done Clone Wars and Godzilla animation, on Netflix, and they do a lot of stuff for Netflix. So sort of all the elements came together really easily. I mean, it’s tough, they have to go make the deals and stuff like that. But while they were doing that, I was sitting there sort of, you know, writing down, “Hey, what this should be,” and I brought in a writer, a guy named George Krstic, who has a lineage in animation. He’s a really sharp guy and he and I developed the overall story into a document that, before a script was written or anything was done, that we presented to everybody, you know, Hasbro, Rooster [Teeth], Netflix, to make sure everybody’s on the same page because what I didn’t want was to be veering off course especially when you’re dealing with a big brand.
And it was very important for us, unlike on Prime Wars, to really align with what was going on with the toys, we wanted it to be as tight knit as possible. So we did a lot of early development that way, and then the story evolves as you keep going once you start to write it, but you know, it was sort of a road map. And that’s my job as a showrunner is to, when the writers come in, to write with them and make sure it stays on track and everybody’s happy with it you know, because when it doesn’t work everybody blames you. So it’s a tricky road. But the joy in it was, I think, because of Prime Wars the relationship with Hasbro was already really good. Especially dealing with the brand team guys like John Warden and Ben Montano in particular, guys I deal with a lot but like the whole Transformers brand team. Very early on, we sat down, I’d go to Rhode Island a couple of times a year and just sort of, you know, they’d sit there and say, “Here’s what it is,” and do these big presentations and you’re sitting there going, “Oh my god, I know all this cool stuff and I can’t talk about it for years!” Like it was gonna be years. Like even the third chapter. Like I can’t talk about it, but like, I’ve known about it for two years. And it’s like, all those guys at Hasbro are so brilliant with how they figure all that out. Sorry, I rambled on there, but you get the idea of how I got involved with it.
TM (Charles): Yeah, awesome. So what is the main theme for the story you’re telling in War For Cybertron Siege?
FJD: Well, Siege is a war story, but we sort of tried to be smart about it. Hasbro was really good about it when they were presenting to me the themes of the toy line and stuff like that. And for them, it was, “Hey, this is Band of Brothers. It’s Dunkirk.” It’s those kinds of things about loyalty and brotherhood on both sides. And I was really fascinated by that, and also sort of being able to exist in a pocket of Transformers that hasn’t been really explored yet. So we had a lot of fresh terrain to play in. And then like I said, they had certain parameters, but I mean, in a good way, like, the way I always say it is, I’d rather know from Hasbro the parameters of the sandbox, versus running around the beach aimlessly and sort of doing whatever. So they were really good. Like, these are our core characters on both sides. These are supporting characters. And these are the themes. So with Siege, it’s the last day of the war. So it’s like literally the final hour. So it’s not an origin, it’s not, “How did the war start?” you know, I think some of that’s been explored, especially in the IDW books, stuff like that. This is sort of like, “What is that final day that ends the war?”
And that doesn’t mean the end of the war is a good thing. You know, because we have more chapters after that. It’s not dancing in the Ewok Village at the end of Return of the Jedi. It’s also about the relationships of these people, like we really sat there and focused on these characters and tried to present them in a way where they’re as three dimensional as possible. So, this is a little spoilerish, but, you know, in some cases, especially on the Autobot side, you’re gonna hear about who these people were before the war. You know, like, not everybody wants to be a soldier. Not everybody wants to be in conflict. And by the way, that’s on both sides.
Because you’re dealing with these two characters – look, everything with Transformers starts with Optimus and Megatron, and what is that conflict between the two of them. And it was great 35 years ago, when it was, “I just I want to kill Optimus Prime and blow up the Autobots,” right? How do you do that in a contemporary way? Where there’s a thought behind what Megatron wants to do? How do you sit there and sort of go, “He could be right.”? i mean, like, Optimus isn’t exactly perfect. And when I say not perfect it doesn’t mean he’s evil and slaps his guys around and is a dictator. It’s how does he learn? How does he grow? And you know, and I think that was the real interesting challenge. We know where those characters are going to end up in G1. How do we get them to a point that’s an interesting arc? And interesting, not just through Optimus and Megatron, but also through the supporting characters. How do we how do we learn about those two guys from them and then learn about them also? And I’ve said this a couple times, but, you know, I always loved Star Trek growing up, the original Star Trek. But what I loved about those movies was always, they always gave the supporting characters their moments, and they also always served a purpose to the overall story. So as you’re gonna get into like Star Trek IV, and all that stuff, with the time travel, everybody serves a purpose. So we’ve sort of took that dynamic and applied it here. Like, what does Bumblebee do? What does Elita do? What does, you know, Starscream and Jetfire and Shockwave, like, what are their purposes in this world as opposed to just cool looking things that can transform. So a lot of depth went into that and Siege, what Hasbro started us with, with that idea of Band of Brothers, Dunkirk, etc, really allowed us to sit there and build an interesting dynamic for all.
TM (Charles): Cool. So I’m guessing the end of the war doesn’t necessarily mean any kind of peace comes after it.
FJD: Never, never (laughs). There’s never an end, you know, but it’s definitely the end of this era of Cybertron’s history. What you’re seeing, across the six episodes, is the defining end of an era moment. You know, when we meet them, this war has been going on for a long time. You know, you hear Ultra Magnus say it in the trailer – Cybertron’s in ruins. So it’s not the G1 Cybertron yet, which has been, at least in my mental chronology, is the rebuilt, the post war rebuilt Cybertron you sort of have to sit there and think about those things and sort of retroactively do that. And we looked at things like the beginning of Bumblebee, which is a really cool interpretation of Cybertron. And sort of, you know, looked at G1 and found those inspirations to create this to carry on that lineage.
TM (Charles): Yeah, that leads to my next question. So how did you balance making this Transformers show accessible to new viewers, but also satisfying for longtime fans?
FJD: Well, I think the key – and by the way, that was one of the first things, you know, I said when we pitched it, was how do we do that? How do we create something? And I think – sort of, not making an origin – you know what I mean? Like to drop the audience in the middle of it? And one of the things we did – and I’m trying to say this without spoiling it – is, there’s a particular character on the Autobot side, or the good guy side, I should say, that is sort of our eyes and ears into it. Like from the beginning, like, you’re learning with him, like, this is the status of the war and all that stuff. And it’s a classic character. And by doing that, and making the time where they first meet this character, etc, you learn a lot from it. So it’s a familiar character you can latch on to, it’s like, oh, I liked that character. But we learn with him. So that was our way to have an open door for, in a perfect world, you know — I looked at it like, there are guys, my age and older who grew up with G1 and were there for when it began, who now have kids. And I’m trying to figure out how to make that a shared experience for them. So like, it’s sophisticated enough for the adults, but also fun and entertaining for the kids who watch Marvel or Star Wars, etc. But then, at the same time be an open door for anybody. Like, hey, this could be my starting point. In a perfect world, like somebody who’s never seen Transformers, could see this and be like, I want to see every Transformers, you know?
Everybody has their different Transformers, you know, like we were of a certain age group was G1. Whereas Matt, my producer, you know, is younger than me, and Beast Wars is his entry point into Transformers. You know, everybody’s got their own version of it. And I guess, you know, because they keep going back to G1 it seems to be the definitive thing. But, it was a real – and we have really good writers like George [Krstic] and Brandon Easton, and a guy named Gavin Hignight also writes on Cyberverse where we try to do that early on. Because, you know, people are going to be binging it anyway. So it’s not like you have to wait a week for it. So it’s almost like a cinematic approach to it, almost like a movie approach. So the first episode deals with a lot of development. It still has action and stuff, but we focused more on the development in the early episodes. So by the time we get to the big set pieces, and the big action and the overall thrust of the story, and eventually the trilogy, you’re invested in these guys really early on. Like, you’re invested in Optimus, Megatron, you know, people on both sides and sort of understand what this war is, what they’re fighting about, what their pasts are. Like, we do explore a lot of that, you know, there are Orion Pax references. This is a fan podcast so I can make those, you know, like, we don’t ignore that stuff, you know what I mean? Like we don’t ignore their past. And using that past to sort of explain who they are at this particular point, because we know where they’re going to end up.
TM (Charles): Yeah. So how did you decide on which characters got into the show? Did it did it start with Hasbro saying, “Here’s the toy line and here’s the cast you can use.”? Or did you propose a set of characters and then Hasbro took that and develop toys or-
FJD: No, no, they actually showed me a brand deck, right? I don’t know if I’m allowed to say these things, but they do these internal decks, you know, for company wide decks that sort of go here are the three seasons or the three chapters of the trilogy. And each one has sort of like core characters, supporting characters, you know, etc. And this is really early stage as it grows. And so we have a sense early on, of who they want to use. And they’re pretty flexible with that, in terms of like, you know, I can’t do every character, you know, we only have a certain budget. Look, you see how many toys they put out. You can’t do all that, right?
TM (Jeremy): 3D animation is expensive!
FJD: Yeah, exactly (laughs). And the other big thing with this was we wanted to make them toy accurate, which takes a lot of work because the model, when you do a kind of show like this, you have to do 3 models – robot, transformation, and vehicle. So you’re not gonna see that for everybody. I’ll leave it at that. And so what happened was, when we had our big kickoff, you know, at this point, the show was set up, etc., and we had an idea of the main characters, when George [Krstic] and I went to Rhode Island to have this big meeting before we finished the initial treatment, we had worked with Polygon [Pictures] to sort of say, based on the budget, how many of these can we have. And we basically, they went through Hasbro’s entire list and put it in there and said, “Here’s all the characters. Here’s the amount you can reach,” you know, with this robot, vehicle, etc. And we looked at it based on, especially for the supporting characters, and characters below that, who can we redeco? Like, oh, we can have a lot of seekers. I mean, like, that’s only one model, and you can redeco and that doesn’t cost a lot of money. Or who the soldiers are going to be on both sides? Things like that, right? Or characters that have a history of redeco kind of things, which I don’t want to spoil.
But I actually brought that document and put it in front of John Warden, and said, “Warden, you go over here and you’re gonna pick,” Like, I let him pick In terms of which was going to be what, and which was more important, and it’s not like and so I took that and went and did it – Of course things changed a little bit during it. And then there’s one or two characters in the story develop where I would say, “Alright, we’ll switch that we don’t need this character. I want to do this one.” There’s a few in Siege that were characters, you know, when we were writing the show, we said, “Oh, we need this character. We need something like this,” and went back to Hasbro and said, “Listen, I want to use these characters.” And they were always really cool with it, because they understood- Again, that was the advantage of doing this story outline really early, was you could explain it to them, like you could show them how the character was going to be used within the story and you weren’t sort of messing with what they were doing with the trilogy and the toyline. And we had already agreed on the majority of the main characters. Like you know, it’s always gonna be Megatron and Optimus. And, you know, like Elita was the one that sort of evolved from those conversations. She wasn’t part of the original conversation. And then we realized oh, Elita, would be great for this. And there’s some surprise characters that I don’t want to talk about yet or I’m not allowed to talk about yet that are in the first season. One of which is my favorite character ever, and it’s a minor like, cameo thing, but I was like, that’s my favorite character. Someone give me the toy that, and there’s no toy. Well, there is but it’s a different line. But, you know-
TM (Jeremy): Scrounge?
FJD: No, no, no (laughs). I’ll tell you that much. You wouldn’t guess it. Because it has a Japanese connection to it, and that’s my sort of sweet spot. But when you see it, you’ll be like, oh, okay. And Warden and I would have a joke. I’d say, “Warden, I need a redeco character to play this role,” because we don’t have any more, you know, we don’t want to build anything that’s not in the thing. And I have all these old, like, Japanese books like the Masterpiece books, all this cartoon, and he’ll go, “Well grab that book and turn to page blah, blah, blah.” Okay, great. I’m going to use this guy, right. And that’s how it sort of evolved. Hasbro’s super trusting and collaborative. Like I said, I think we had the Prime Wars experience and there are no walls between us with that kind of thing.
TM (Charles): Awesome. So, does that mean you you got a lot of toys to do some storyboarding with, you know, to play around with (laughs)?
FJD: I send all the toys to Japan. You know, like, when they have the toys I ask them to send them to Japan because the team in Japan dissects them. They’ll sit there and study them. Like, we have the main director on the show actually got his start on the ’86 movie.
TM (Charles): Oh, wow!
TM (Jeremy): That’s a pedigree!
FJD: Like he has a whole history of this, right? Yeah. So in Japan they put out those yearly annual books that are, like, the summary of here are the toys that all came out in the last year and what’s coming out.
TM (Darryl): Generations.
FJD: Right so like, I think at the end of last year, they did a 35th anniversary book that was sort of like the entire Takara Tomy line from the beginning to like, I forget when, and it’s mostly all art, right? So I bought all of them. And there’s all this like concept character art on the back, like from the movies and the later stuff, especially like, stuff like Headmasters and stuff like that. And then he would literally sit there and point like, “Yeah, I did that one. I did that one.” It was like, “Oh, it must have brought you some great memories,” He’s like, “No, too much line work. Directing is better.” (laughs)
But then there’s another guy at Polygon [Pictures] who, his single job is transformations. That’s it. He’s like a guy who has been doing it- He started in 2D, he also worked on the original stuff. He’s probably, like in his 60s. And he sits at a little cubicle not much bigger than this, right? And it’s just stacked with toys and Gundam books and all this stuff. And he literally takes a toy and sits there and figures it out in a computer now, what the transformation should be and he gives it to the rigging team. So you’re going to see, in particular in the first season, the transformations of the main characters, Optimus and Megatron in particular, Starscream, are all toy accurate transformations. Like if you watch Optimus transforming in the trailer when he goes flying into the thing and transforms, that is literally physically how the toy transforms. Now, not every character does this because that’s the that’s the thing I’m scared of talking about. It’s like, “Wow, you know, this character didn’t do that,” Well, also the toy wasn’t ready yet because you have to understand we’re ahead of the toys. So, you know, I’m writing these things and we’re animating these long before the toy lines are done.
TM (Jeremy): Right, I mean, we saw a Bumblebee in the trailer and there’s still no toy. [This interview was recorded before the War For Cybertron: Earthrise Bumblebee toy was announced in July 2020]
FJD: Yeah, I mean, that’s a Hasbro question. (laughs)
TM (Jeremy): Yeah, I know. They can’t hold off a Bumblebee for too long. We know one’s coming.
FJD: I wouldn’t lose sleep.
TM (Charles): (Laughs) So one of your writers, Brandon Easton, also has done some work for IDW comics. I don’t know if you or your team had any conversations with any of the people who worked on the IDW comics when when doing any of the development of the show?
FJD: No, the way it works is Hasbro has like a publishing person. You know, Brandon got hired because he was a genuine fan and he’s a good writer. Like, he had done the M.A.S.K. books. So, like his enthusiasm, he has so many great ideas. Yeah, but he came in like, there’s some stuff including that character that I’m talking about that’s my favorite character? That stemmed from an idea he came up with during this and-
TM (Darryl): Brandon won an Emmy, didn’t he?
FJD: Did he? He didn’t tell me that. (laughs) But, so Hasbro has a publishing person, who I guess is the liaison between everything who sort of manages that. And to be honest, the IDW books are difficult to fully implement into what we’re doing because we’re doing this new sort of section and like they relaunched the thing, and it’s even before what we’re doing, but it’s really on Hasbro to sort of manage the creative on that, I guess, you know, between the parties, like, you know, I don’t want to mess with what they’re doing and you know, obviously I don’t want them sitting there going, “Well you got to do this.” So it’s a very distant sort of relationship at the moment. We’re supposed to be talking with them soon just to align on the brand continuity and all that stuff. Some of those books are gorgeous.
Especially like, they were doing like a lot of character books and stuff like that, like profiles and stuff, we would reference a lot of that stuff. Now, that’s the tricky part is there’s so many iterations of these characters over the years, you know, that we had to sort of sit there from the beginning and go, “Okay, which version of this character is this?” For the sake of our sanity, but also clarity of the storytelling, we’re sticking to our reference as G1, you know, it has to be because that’s what the toy line is. That’s what, you know. I would love to do all these different versions of the characters and stuff like that, but you know, tonally, etc. we need to stick to the classic iteration of it.
TM (Charles): Right.
FJD: Like we’re not pretending to do like, “Oh, this is Transformers as you’ve never seen it before!” Like, sure it is visually, but you have to respect the franchise or there’s no point doing it. You know, what’s come before etc. and what works. You know, it’s crazy because that continuity is insane to begin with.
TM (Charles): Yeah.
TM (Jeremy): So Starscream is not gonna be a backstabber, or he is gonna be a backstabber, he’s not gonna just be Megatron’s puppet. (laughs)
FJD: Oh, you’re in for a treat with Starscream. That’s all I’m gonna say. Especially over the three chapters. He’s classic Starscream, but with some new twists and turns. Is he gonna try and backstab people? You’re damn right he’s gonna! Is he gonna do it a few times? Hell yeah, he’s gonna do it a few times. You can’t not have it, like, you’re betraying the character if he doesn’t do that, right? But the question is, who he betrays and how he does it, you know, like, that was the challenge of finding new ways to do that in a way that is consistent with the character as he exists in the franchise. And I think we’ve done a good job and it also helps that we have such a good actor playing the role because what you know, what Frank (Todaro) does is, he never forgets the core of the original G1 version but knows how to bring some emotion to it in a very grounded and modern way, and the other thing is he loves the franchise, you know, like 200%. So, I mean, there are times when we’re talking, like marketing about Starscream like I’ll text him and be like, “Would Starscream do this?” and he’s like, “Why?” and I’m like, “Don’t ask me questions just would he do this?” but yeah, that’s the fun part.
TM (Charles): So were there any characters, like any characters you got to spotlight that haven’t really had a chance to shine in previous Transformers media? Like were there any characters you thought, “This guy’s kind of obscure, he hasn’t really gotten anything, any big roles and I’m gonna put them in here and expand his role a little bit.”
FJD: The big one’s Elita, Elita-1. That’s that’s the big sort of, “Hey, here’s a character that hasn’t really been explored,” and you can start to see it in the trailer, you know, when she says this, you know- When we were doing the homework and it was sort of like she had this romantic past with Prime was alluded to, you know, I just, we latched on to that in sort of, we haven’t seen that. And for us, having female Transformers as a big presence in this was really important. So you’re gonna see- I can’t remember who they’ve announced so I’m afraid of spoiling things. Um…
TM (Charles): Well, Chromia has got a toy so we’re assuming she’s in it…
FJD: Okay, Chromia’s in it. But like, you know, Chromia is really badass in it. Like she’s really, like, badass. But Elita was, to answer your question, Elita was the main, like, how do we make this character really mean something? Because, you know, it was a character that had we had kernels of information about. She appeared in some recent stuff, but was never really fully explored. So she wasn’t explored enough. And we sort of did it in a way where- again, I don’t know when this show’s coming out. She’s certainly not the damsel in distress. You see in the trailer, she’s pretty handy with a weapon. And I will say, I actually think she’s smarter than Optimus and Megatron. And that’s something we explore quite a bit in this, so she was a big one.
There’s, I’m trying to think if he’s been, he’s got to be announced by now. Ratchet was another one that we thought, “Oh, There’s some interesting,” we have a really good actor for him. A guy named Raphael Goldstein, who’s great. Ratchet has a big, a wouldn’t say as big as like Elita, but he’s got an important role to play in it that, again, I don’t think has been explored in the continuity before. Like, I think it’s gonna be something like, even when we meet him, like, certain characters are surprised. Like, “Oh you do this and you do that,” and again when you sort of, if I told you, you’d be like oh, that’s totally in line with the character. It’s just like something nobody’s done before with it.
So that was really important. On the Decepticon side, and I’ll let you take this as you will, Jetfire starts this as a Decepticon. I’m not talking really out of continuity. So his relationship with Starscream is really interesting. [Darryl shows FJ his Jetfire toy] There you go that’s in the office (laughs). There’s a reason the toy does that.
TM (Jeremy): I just watched the original G1 episodes with my five year old and he’s a big Jetfire fan.
FJD: It’s a great character. He’s great character. Yeah, I think he’s another one that sort of will take you through the Decepticon side of things along with Starscream. You know, again, we’re trying to show a balanced side of the war, on both sides. And I think we’ve done a good job with that. But to your point, that was really important, was exploring characters in a way, and enhancing all of them. You know, like even smaller characters will have a moment where it’s like, “Oh, that’s really cool character.” I mean, like Mirage. Mirage is another one, you know, like somebody like that, like, how do you make him interesting and compelling? And even though he’s not gonna have a lot of screen time versus Optimus or Elita. How do you make them memorable? And, you know, also in a way where like, you want somebody to go, “Oh, that was my favorite and I want to go buy the toy,” Like, you know, that was always the intention. I’m not saying it’s a commercial for toys, but like, to be emotionally invested in a character so much you want to buy the toy.
TM (Charles): Yeah. Were there any Transformers characters that you you didn’t get to put in that you really wanted to? Like, is there a character that, for whatever reason didn’t make it in, but something you really wanted to explore?
FJD: Well, yes and no, because you know, off the bat, which characters you’re going to use, right? So, for me who loves the Japanese Beast Wars characters, like I can’t put Lio Convoy in this, right? Like, right now I’m on a big kick of watching Headmasters and Victory and all and stuff. Like Six Shot, you know, like, well there’s no toy of that guy. So that’s really that. But again, you have so many characters, especially in Siege. There’s so many characters that you’re already struggling to sort of make sure you use everybody, and use it in a way that’s fulfilling and worth the investment into the show. And the funny thing is, the mystery character I keep talking about, you know, sort of evolved as we were writing it and really that sort of satisfied the like, obscure, Japanese character that we could put in the thing and you know, in a new way, like nobody’s expecting.
Like, that’s the kind of stuff, in a few months after you guys have seen the show, we’ll come back and I’ll tell you the whole story of how this all came to be. And like, “What were you guys thinking with that?” You know, so, “Well, we had this idea. It was a lot of fun.” So yeah, but there’s no characters where it was like, “Oh, I want to do this character.” And they were like, “No,” or, “Not that.” The big character that I wanted to put in it right away was Elita. And they were like, yeah, definitely do Elita. And I feel like she’s gonna be the, I hope, the surprise of Siege, is Elita, as the emotional anchor of the whole thing.
TM (Charles): That’s cool. I’m looking forward to that. All right, well, I guess this kind of tends to happen a lot in Transformers stories. But can we assume at some point in the trilogy, you kill Optimus Prime? Because it seems like everyone kills Optimus Prime. (laughs)
FJD: I can’t say. I can’t say who lives or dies. I can’t. Like that’s, you know… yeah.
TM (Jeremy): When characters do die, do they go gray? (laughs)
FJD: I can’t answer any of these. (laughs) I can’t, you know, like, it’s tricky, I want to tell you everything! I also want to want you all to be surprised by who lives and dies and how that all works. There’s a lot of surprises in this. Especially over the whole trilogy. I think people are gonna be really pleasantly surprised by it.
TM (Charles): So what was the process for like- you mentioned how all the animation is done in Japan and you’re writing the story. So what was the whole process? When you wrote the story did you do storyboarding and writing the scripts, and then send that over to Japan? How much interaction did you have back and forth with the animation studio?
FJD: Well, we have a lot of interaction with them. Because basically, everything besides the, in terms of the writing and development process, the whole thing was written, developed and written here in the US. And then when we finished the script and everybody signed off on it, Netflix, Hasbro, Rooster [Teeth], etc., we sent it to Japan. And they break it down. We do weekly, you know, a couple times a week, meetings if needed. Like I said, we have a team at Polygon [Pictures], who they’ve worked on other Transformers shows before like [Transformers] Prime and Robots in Disguise. But there’s a genuine, and this is one of the few experiences in my life where everybody involved with it in a production, marketing, everything, is sort of weirdly aligned with the same vision and everybody’s on the same page. And like we just clicked really quickly with the team in Japan. I spent a lot of time there, sort of in the room with them, going through it. And they did, I hope this all comes out someday, there’s beautiful concept paintings and stuff that they did, like, we did a lot of early development. Again, we had that document I keep referring to, but that was easy for me to give that to them. And they can come back with questions and we could shape the scripts based on what they were telling us, you know, within budget constraints, but also creative things.
The directors and I had a really good rapport, especially the main director I was telling you about, a guy named Kame-san, where we could sit there and instinctively trust him with it and vice versa. So they would storyboard it and they look like these beautiful manga-like things and then we do animatics. A lot of the early tweaking is in that animatic stage to get the flow and pacing of it. And I recorded the voices really early, much earlier than we normally would on a show, and we actually filmed the actors speaking. So the animators could, you know, get the best possible sort of lip synching to the thing because you have these guys they don’t, you know, English isn’t their natural language. So, but they can match it accordingly. Because we wanted to make this as detailed and realistic as possible. And so, like I said, the majority of it, of the whole animation process was in Japan. Like I live on Japan time. The post-production we’re doing here in LA so when they’re done with the animation, it comes back and then I go to Paramount Technicolor on the stage where they do a lot of the live action features and work with the team there and do the the sound and the music is done here. We have a great composer named Alexander Bornstein, who’s absolutely phenomenal. And, you know, he and I work really closely together on that stuff. And in terms of the animation, it’s a pure Japanese production, and it’s great lineage with the franchise. And I actually think, the show starts off at a really high level, animation wise, thanks to these guys. And then as the trilogy keeps going, it just goes like that. Like it just, they keep doing things like, I’m not joking when you get these, you know, I wake up to an email like, you know, hey, please look at the animation for this episode and it’s like Christmas. It’s literally like absolute Christmas watching these things come to life and you know it blows my mind what these guys are doing.
TM (Darryl): That’s awesome
TM (Charles): Super important question… Does Prime keep his faceplate on for the whole time? Throughout the show?
FJD: Yes. Yes. Yeah.
TM (Charles): (laughs) That’s just a pet peeve of mine. He has to have the faceplate.
TM (Darryl): Serious point of contention for Charles.
FJD: I’m glad I can answer the super, like, when he said super important question I said “Oh shit, I don’t know if I can answer that,” you know, so I’m glad I could answer it. (laughs)
Yeah, I mean, again, we didn’t want to take liberties with the show for the sake of taking liberties. We tried to approach it from, especially with the writers who are all fans, and, there’re writers, in the later seasons that come in that have an affinity for this that people are going to be really excited about. Our voice director is a guy named Phil Bach. He said it best when we started the process of recording the voices in casting the show. He said, “The way to approach the show,” he was telling the actors this, and I realized this was the approach to everybody on the creative side, “was remember when you first saw it as a kid and how serious you took it? Like how it was the most important thing? And you know, when Optimus died in the movie, like you felt it and you felt the grief for it. How do you take that feeling and apply it now? Like how do you how do you apply that seriousness now?” So we’re not playing it for nostalgia, but then that feeling that you had when you first saw it. That made you love it. You know, that’s literally from me, to the writers to Matt to everybody involved with it. That was always the approach to it, was, “What made you love it? And what was that emotional hook of it?” And, and to treat it seriously. You know, visually it’s a dark show, but it’s not a dark show, if that makes sense. Like, there’s the optimism and hope of Transformers and it’s the good and evil of Transformers. But we’re trying to do in a sophisticated way, like, you know, it’s not like Prime Wars where it was like, “Let’s do all these different things with it, etc.” This is, “Let’s really pay attention to the continuity, and what’s really going on with the toy line,” because Hasbro knows, obviously, they know what the hell they’re doing, in terms of the audience and the toys and all that stuff. But how do we make that three dimensional?
And to the point we talked about before, how can somebody who’s never seen it before get that emotional feeling of like, man, “I hope these… I hope they win” or whichever side you choose, you know? That it’s compelling and it’s just not… The big thing, and I said this on another interview recently, is what I never want it to be is just me sitting there with two toys making them fight. The history of the franchise already gives you the beauty of transformation. Like, this dude transforms into a truck, this guy transforms into a tank, you know what I mean? Like, how cool is that, right? So you’ve already given me what makes it cool. How do we make it mean something in the story and the characters etc.? That’s ultimately the most important thing, is I’m more proud of the emotional stuff in it, and the character stuff than I am the action. Because to me the action’s the bread and butter, it comes easy. You know, you can see it in the trailer, it’s great action. But I knew there was gonna be great action because I have really good writers and I have a really good director who is going to sit there and frame that action a really cool way. And I think especially as the series keeps going, and especially Siege, when we get into the sort of the climax of it, the action is so jaw dropping, like there’s some big moments in it where I was just like, you know, there’s a couple of moments we get the animation and you’re like, “They really did it!” you know, like, you’re feeling the emotion of it. But that’s a testament to everybody I was talking about – the actors, the voice director, the writers, everybody’s just on this, and this isn’t BS. This isn’t like, I’m gonna give you some Hollywood BS thing. It’s literally the only experience in my life where everybody creatively involved in it from Netflix to Hasbro to Rooster Teeth, and to my whole team is sitting there going, we know what this is, because we love it. And this speaks to us in a way other iterations of Transformers have or haven’t before. So that’s really the part that we’re excited about.
TM (Jeremy): That’s really great to hear.
TM (Charles): So, we know it’s already been announced that Siege has six episodes. And of course, you know, being fans who always want more, so any chance for like the next two seasons it’ll get a bit longer, like 10 or 13 episodes for the for the other two? It’s just just six for each one?
FJD: Six, six, and six.
TM (Charles): Okay. All right.
FJD: I don’t know if I’m allowed to say that. But I mean, that’s not really- I think I did. I think that’s the public, but that’s okay.
TM (Charles): Okay,
FJD: But trust me, it works like-
TM (Jeremy): Netflix knows what they’re doing.
FJD: Yeah, like, you know, we talked a lot about it in the beginning of how many episodes and you know, with the six episodes, especially Siege because Siege is interesting because you don’t realize it but, well you’ll have to see it- is it’s all sort of in real time. So it’s like the six episodes are just like one continuous story. So it’s not like, “Oh, they stopped for breakfast,” or, like the one episode ends with the sunrise and they go “Oh, we’ll beat the Decepticons tomorrow.” You know, there’s none of that. It’s just sort of like, you hit the ground running with this and it just goes and it’s a roller coaster.
TM (Jeremy): So essentially is it made to binge all together?
FJD: Exactly, the whole idea, and I didn’t realize this till we had written the first season, was we wrote it to be binged. Like, we didn’t write it to be weekly, episodic television, we wrote it to be, it’s six chapters of one big story. It’s almost like a movie, to a degree. But we use that to our benefit, you know, where it’s like, that gives us the time to, like I was talking about earlier, set the stage in the early moments of the show, of who these characters are, what’s going on, what’s the motivation, what’s the plot, etc. And it allows us to keep going really, really quickly.
TM (Charles): Yep.
FJD: You breeze through it. Trust me, when you watch it, you’re just gonna be like, I gotta watch it. It’s very addictive as it keeps going. Because we also sit there and like, I come from a comic book background, so it’s always like, how do you end on that splash page that makes somebody go, I gotta see what happens next. A lot of effort went into that, where each episode ends where it’s like, wait, what’s that? I got to watch the next one. That was always my intention.
TM (Charles): We know it’s it might be jumping the gun a little bit, but any hints for for the next War for Cybertron chapter Earthrise? I mean, it’s-
FJD: Nah (laughs). I can tell you it’s really good. I can tell you that (laughs). No, I mean, again, I would say this: follow the toys. If you follow the toys, you get an idea. Because I don’t think there’s ever been a show as closely aligned with the toys in this franchise, as much as this. I’m saying that meaning Hasbro and our team interact very closely on- so the Earthrise toys are out, right?
TM (Charles): Yeah, yes. A lot of them are out now.
FJD: Like the visual aspects of it, all that stuff like, you know, we study all that stuff, like we study the color schemes of the toy packaging and, you know, etc., and at a certain point, because we were far ahead, they’re studying what we’re doing. So, you know, like I said, they’re super collaborative and they’re a great partner to have like that because they give you the creative leeway and they support what you’re doing and vice versa.
So yeah, I think we’re in good shape in terms of where Earthrise is. I think people will like it once they… Once you see Siege, it’ll be obvious. Okay, this is what Earthrise is. And then we’ll throw the curveballs that you’ll never expect.
TM (Charles): So, you mentioned one of your writers also wrote for Cyberverse. Have you had a chance to check out the Cyberverse cartoon?
FJD: Yeah, yeah.
TM (Charles): Do you have any thoughts on that?
FJD: Well, I think it’s fun for little kids. I think Hasbro was really smart in terms of how they… Hasbro understands their audience and does each line accordingly and it’s really really smart. And we, to be quite honest, we watched and read a lot of Cyberverse when we were doing this, and the advantage of having Gavin [Hignight] being on both shows is there are ways to align and there are pitfalls to avoid. Meaning like, “Oh, in Cyberverse they did this and, okay let’s do this,” or, “They did this, let’s do our version of this, because it’s an important moment in Transformers history.” You know what I mean? Like, there are ways to that. I think it’s a lot of fun. He gave me a lot of ideas like, “Oh, they have a lot of female bots over here,” and stuff like that. We need that. Or, here’s our version of the Allspark, you know, what is their version of the Allspark? You know, because that’s a big thing for Hasbro and the current continuity, how you incorporate that into the Generations line. So yeah, I think I think they did a great job on Cyberverse.
TM (Charles): Yeah, we were really pleasantly surprised with Cyberverse. We were a little bit skeptical since the format was shortened down to 12 minute episodes, but when we watched it, we were really pleasantly surprised and have enjoyed all three seasons. So yeah, we’re happy to hear that you were able to see some commonalities and do some things different too.
FJD: Well we took some actors from it too.
TM (Charles): Oh, really? Okay.
FJD: We have the same Optimus. Jake Foushee, is the same Optimus.
TM (Charles): Okay, I didn’t realize that.
FJD: Yeah, I mean, he’s gonna sound a little different in ours. Because you know, it’s not a kid show like Cyberverse was a little kids’ show. But we hired Jake, and Hasbro said to us, though, “You should listen to Jake, he’s really good.” And Jake’s a great guy and there’s a couple actors I think that have some crossover, maybe not the same characters, but there were some actors in Cyberverse that we were like, “Oh, they’re good, let’s bring them over to our stuff, even if they’re not the same character, etc.” I like that personally, like a brand consistency to it. You know, how do you sit there and, like, make Jake the modern Optimus or something like that. You know what I mean? Like, he was just really good at Optimus and he can emote really well and all that. But I mean, I dig Cyberverse a lot.
TM (Charles): Nice. I think we’re coming close to the end here, we’ve had you on for a while so we don’t want to take out too much your time, but you did mention how, you know, you had started with the previous shows, the Prime Wars trilogy. And it sounds like with the Netflix show you’ve had a lot more creative freedom. Were there any other major differences between working on those previous shows and the Netflix show?
FJD: Yeah, I mean, it’s a completely different thing. I mean, I didn’t start as the showrunner on Prime Wars. So in terms of its creative approach, etc, that I had, I didn’t start it from scratch. You know, I wrote some stuff. There was a showrunner who, you know, sort of took the lead on that, very much what I do now on this. So yeah, it’s a completely different thing. I mean, again, you’re talking about the short form episodes. It’s very different storytelling format, when you’re doing ten 10-minute episodes versus six 22-minute episodes in a different animation style and basically being able to start it from scratch. Like I said, Prime Wars for me, when I came back into it as a show runner, at the tail end of Titans [Return] and you know, really the only one I really got to have some say over was the last one. But even that was developed to a certain degree by the time I got involved, or came back to it, because I was too busy working on Titans [Return]. And, like I said, it was more like a graduate school experience of what lessons are good and bad [that] we learned from that experience and applied it to War for Cybertron.
And, you know, it’s a fresh slate because you’re doing a different era, it’s not a sequel to it. They’re very much two very distinctly different things creatively, visually, etc. Whereas there was an approach to replicate G1 in some significant level in Prime Wars, what we’re doing in War for Cybertron is G1 inspired, but also in my mind, it’s the prequel to G1. So, whereas I think Prime Wars was considered, you know, post G1 way down the line kind of thing and you know, we got some good actors out of it, we learned, like I said, a lot of lessons and it got us the trust of Hasbro, which is the most important thing.
Look coming up in a few years it will be 40 years of a billion dollar franchise, multi-billion dollar franchise. You know, some days I wake up- you have to remind yourself of the responsibility of that. And you can’t make it about you, it has to be about what’s best for the franchise and best for the show. And how do you approach it from the fan point of view, and I think that’s what was missing in Prime Wars, you have to really approach it from the fan point of view and the brand point of view. The more you know, in the beginning creatively of what Hasbro was doing, the more you organically put that into the show, as opposed to making just a commercial for toys. I’ll give you a funny story. Obviously you guys know who Flint Dille is?
TM (Charles): Yep.
FJD: And so before the lockdown, Flint came to my office, and I showed him the first couple episodes of this. And because, we’ve met a bunch of times, we have a mutual friend and in the legendary Frank Miller, so we knew each other casually for a long time, but then, thanks to Hasbro, they reconnected us and he came and he was just sitting there going. “I can’t believe this.” He goes, “When we were doing the show-” he said, “I feel sorry for you guys.” And I said, “Why?” He said, “Because you’re stuck with what we did thirty years ago. We didn’t know, we were still gonna be watching it 30-35 years later,” He goes, “You have to remember when we were doing it, there was no cable, there wasn’t even VHS yet. You know, we thought they’d run it a few times on networks and never be seen again. And now you have a whole generation that’s grown up with it takes it so seriously.” He’s like, “I feel a responsibility towards you, and you’ve done that,” he was pointing at the screen, and I was really moved by it. And he was saying, “You’ve taken what we did and kept it going.” And I said, “My dream in 30 years is to be what Flint was to me that week,” somebody else is going to be inspired by what we’re doing. But just so you understand, the lineage of this is very, very important to everybody involved with it.
We take it just as serious as you guys take it as collectors and fans. You know, we’re fans too, it’s a lot to handle, in a good way. Like, you’re sitting there. There are days when I say, I wake up, and I pinch myself with the responsibility of it, but how lucky can you be to be involved with this? It’s nuts, right? Like, I’m sitting there, like, I drove to Walmart in the COVID, just to get those Netflix figures. I wasn’t gonna wait for Hasbro to send them to me. It’s like, well, we sat there and we control the destiny of this. Whoever the character was I was holding at the time, like, we take that very, very seriously. You know, we’re the first generation of franchise fans when you really think about it, right?
So kids of the 80’s for the first time, but the people who were creating those things in the 80’s weren’t thinking that. They were just coming up with cool stuff, right? Now it’s our responsibility because we know this stuff’s gonna last through the ages and you live and die by that. You know what I mean? So that’s why I’m really excited for War for Cybertron, because I feel like we got all the elements into place that satisfy what you guys want, what we want, what Hasbro wants. You know, let’s just make a good show that is in the spirit of Transformers and hopefully people will understand that… I know people are gonna, you know, “it’s not the voices,” “It’s this and that,” it’s very much… what I always wanted people to understand that we’re aware of the responsibility of it. Versus this isn’t just some job you got to make a cartoon.
TM (Charles): Yeah. That’s great. Um, just a couple final questions. So, we know you have a background in music. So you mentioned you were working with the composer who did the music on the show soundtrack. Did you have any input on that? Or were you able to contribute at all to that?
FJD: Well I don’t play anything on it. The good thing is I can speak to the composer on a musical level, which I never thought my music background would actually be this helpful. And the advantage of coming from an electronic music background is that the music is synth heavy. And it’s a combination of synth and orchestra. That sort of takes you know, it’s not 80’s by any stretch of the imagination, it’s very contemporary, but it’s like how do you take those elements of Transformers music which has always been electronic always been, etc. and add that sort of grandiose, orchestral feel of cinema in general. So Alex and I had a lot of conversations in advance about the musical palette for each chapter, you know, so each one’s going to have- It’s consistent, but each chapter will have its unique flavor to it. For this obviously, it’s war, it’s military, it’s etc.
And he did a really good job early on where he created three themes. I think one of the themes is used in the teaser trailer. He did one that was an Autobot theme. One was a Decepticon theme. The other one was just a Cybertron theme, like what’s the theme of the planet? What’s the theme of the world? And when we see like a city shot, what would that music be like? And we worked really hard on that together. And Alex is- probably the music is probably, I’m not joking, the easiest part of the whole show. Because like, Alex got it right away. And when he comes to the office, and we sort of spot check, we’ll do a couple episodes at a time, and we’ll talk about the emotion in the scene like, “Oh, this moment is this,” and I always keep my Spotify open because we’re always referencing classic soundtracks, from John Williams’ stuff to everybody; Blade Runner soundtrack, Vangelis, all this stuff. So, um, the funny thing is, I’ll hear him do some synth stuff and then I’ll end up buying whatever plugins he’s using and stuff like that and use it for myself. But we can nerd out over that, and I think he likes that that I could speak in a technical aspect. Like, “Oh if we go a couple octaves up here, before the bridge,” and all that stuff. And we can talk about that. And we click really easily, there’s very few notes I have to give him on it. He’s a really brilliant guy.
So, yeah, I think people will dig the soundtrack because it’s a right combination of what modern Transformers should be. A little bit of synth, a little bit of orchestra. And it depends on the moment, like so some moments it’ll be pure synth. And Alex also brought in, you know, in this day and age a lot of these composers do everything themselves on the computer and stuff like that. But Alex has gone the extra step and we have some string players and guitarists and stuff like that to really take those moments and make them bigger.
TM (Jeremy): Was TRON Legacy in the list of soundtrack?
FJD: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. Early on we, I had to, you know, they had to stop me from going too Tron Legacy, but it’s definitely a template.
TM (Charles): Cool. Darryl, I’m gonna throw this to you, because you just came up with this question. So go ahead.
TM (Darryl): Oh, sure.
FJD: Was he like sneaky typing questions to you?
TM (Darryl): (laughs) I was! I don’t want to look like an asshole if I’m wrong (laughs). The Transformers Trading Card Game actually has added a really new aspect to Transformers recently. And it’s providing a look into the future of Transformers, and perhaps the show Siege. What can you tell us about Mercenaries?
FJD: (Pauses) I can’t tell you anything about Mercenaries (laughs). I don’t know what you’re talking about.
TM (Darryl): No? Okay, alright. (laughs)
FJD: I never heard of the Mercenaries. It’s not like they have the coolest logo I’ve ever seen in Transformers, and I want it on a T shirt (laughs). But I don’t know a damn thing about the Mercenaries.
TM (Darryl): Fair enough. Fair enough. (laughs)
TM (Charles): I guess. I think we’re really waiting with bated breath now for the show. We gotta have this show hurry up and come out. (laughs)
FJD: I can’t believe You got the Mercenaries question in. Oh boy. (laughs)
TM (Darryl): I just thought about it. I was like, wait a minute, we’re missing something on this. And I got it… I had to get it in before the end. Oh, well.
FJD: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
TM (Jeremy): We’ll all learn about it together.
TM (Darryl): What’s this? What do you got on that shirt there? anything?
FJD: Nope, I got nothing.
TM (Charles): Well, I think our last, main question, and this is near and dear to us because we have a mutual friend in Jimmerz at Distortion Productions.
FJD: My brother.
TM (Charles): Yeah, so I wanted to know, have you contributed to his Electronic Saviors project?
FJD: Oh, yeah, the one that just came out the other day. I have a band called Trade Secrets and we have a track on the one that just came out. Literally the other day.
TM (Charles): Nice.
FJD: So I’ve done- he’s done six of them, right?
TM (Jeremy): Yeah.
FJD: And I’ve been on five of them. So my previous band was a band called Hype Factor. So I was on that. And then I think I did- Hype Factor was on three of them, the first three, I think. Then we missed a year, and then I had the new band, Trade Secrets. And that’s been on the last two. So it’s bizarre, because, you know, obviously, it means a lot to me to be on that, when I started doing them, for him, I was doing it as his friend who was supporting him and he had gone through this terrible thing. And then when we got the second one, my mom had cancer, and subsequently passed away. So then it took on a different meaning. And then I got cancer. And then it took on a whole different thing. Because Jim, you know, Jim, during all that when I was sick, was a wonderful, you know, sounding board and confidant, because I wasn’t public about it. I didn’t want Facebook, I didn’t want to put chemo Facebook updates, you know, stuff like that. But Jim was one of the few people I can talk to, because we literally had the same cancer, colon cancer.
So what I sort of love is now we get to the sixth one, where we’re both survivors of it. Now I’ve been clean about three years, well, four years, almost four years. And so it takes on a real, three years, the real special thing to be a part of his dream because he’s given so much of his life to that and given back so much to it. I think he’s one of the truest and most genuine human beings I’ve ever met in my life. And that was before I got sick. And, it just bonded us in such a bizarre way that, you know, you take those little victories of a great checkup or a scan comes back good and then even just contributing songs to this, to his series, has such an emotional context from me for it. Yeah, I love him like a brother. He’s just, like I said, one of the best people I’ve ever met in my life. And, I’m sure people listening to this know what an insane Transformers fan he is. I love talking to him about it. He’s somebody I can, have those sort of like… he’s a great sounding board for when I have ideas and things like that, and I trust him implicitly on probably every level humanly possible. I love the guy.
TM (Jeremy): I know he’s not doing the big compilations after this one, but he’s gonna continue with things like Respect The Prime, that he’s been putting out with the Transformers theme. Are you gonna contribute to those when he does future ones?
FJD: I think that me doing the Transformers themes are a little, it’s a little on the nose (laughs). But I have a record, I have an EP he’s putting out July 10th, it’s gonna come out. Trade Secrets EP, July 10th. So I just finished that. And yeah, I just think what he does for fandom on both ends is just absolutely incredible. He’s so cool.
TM (Charles): Yeah, we love the guy.
FJD: Yeah, he’s the best.
TM (Charles): Well, I hope you’ll indulge us for just a couple more minutes. We like to end our interviews with a set of rapid fire questions.
FJD: Hit me.
[Rapid fire questions]
TM (Charles): And yeah, so I think that that takes us to the end of the interview. But thanks so much for all the time you spent with us. We are really excited for War for Cybertron: Siege, and as soon as it comes out, we will want to have you back on after the show’s out. Maybe do a post mortem and talk about all the things you couldn’t talk about right now?
TM (Jeremy): You can tease us with more stuff you can’t talk about.
TM (Charles): Yeah, we’ll get all the spoilers for Earthrise! (laughs)
FJD: Exactly! The problem is always gonna be something I’m not allowed to talk about.
TM (Charles): (laughs) Alright, thanks so much. F.J.
FJD: Thank you guys. It’s wonderful. Thank you, everybody, for listening to me ramble on and on.
TM (Jeremy): I think it’ll do a lot of good with people understanding the love that the entire creative team has for the source material.
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