WTF Primetime - 31 - Grillmada - April 22 2012

Well, about those Insecticons largely being putties in this episode, I've had a few theories, many of which it seems I wasn't alone with. In short, lets take a rundown of the 3 we've seen, those being the one on Cybertron, the one that Megatron bested, and the ones that served as cannon fodder.

Cybertronian Insecticon: To me, a couple of rather important points for this one could have to do with it not only being in its natural habitat, but also that it was possibly left behind specifically. Granted, maybe it was also fresh outa statis or whatever, but it also had a pretty clear objective with minimal distractions.


Airachnid's 1st Pet: This one wasn't in its natural area (it was on Earth oppose to Cybertron), but it shared the element of having a clear objective, and it could possible have even been enhanced with Airachnid's influence. Plus as Hypershock mentioned, both this & the one on Cybertron were fighting while grounded, which could also favor them.


The swarm: These were outa their traditional habitat, being shot in the air, farther away from Airachnid, and to UltraPrimal's point, likely quite confused & mentally stretched thin in general... so even if we ignore the plotpoints, I can logicate (for the sake of this point, "logicate" will be a word) why they were dealt with so easily in this episode.




... moving to Grill, I'm gonna be quite disappointed if the camera battery cutting out at the end (right before the phonecall about Prime being cleared) gets completely dismissed, but other than that, I think the episode did well by me.

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Originally Posted by eyeballkid, on alternative compliments like what? she's a nurse.

That's an interesting theory. It could really be anything that anyone has mentioned, or a combination of them. I just hope they come along and say why the insecticons were so amateur, that might make this episode a little better retroactively

Seemed pretty obvious to me, Starscream rockets that Clone in the face and then he can try to operate on himself to put the dead clones t-cog back in - and as it's a clone there should be no rejection or size fitting problems with the replacement cog. Glad screamers getting used to pain as he's going to feel some more if he has to operate on himself.

But then there's also people who think Trees beat up Insecticons, and an Insecticon killed Breakdown - neither of which happened.

It's easy to jump to conclusions I suppose - I thought for a long time the prototypes eye was breakdown's as it fi the facts and I couldn't think of any reason fort he prototype not to have only one eye if it as not breakdown's but then someone else pointed out that what appeared to be breakdown's eye was attached to the bomb Mech tried to blow up the Autobots with. and when that failed ratchet left with it in his hand - so I guess that makes the reason for the Prototype only having one ey less obvious than I first thought.

And it's a lesson in not jumping to conclusions.... that said it could have been intended to have been breakdown's eye in the prototype and it's just a continuity error that it's not his eye in actuality.

I guess the only way to find out is to ask the team at a convention why the Mech-proto only had one eye and if it was intended to be Breakdown's or not.

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My explanation (retcon) for why the Insecticons were so hopeless is one of the following ;

1. They were babies who had been in stasis since being built and not very good fighters yet.
2. The one that was beating up on Megatron and Arcee were a lot more experienced ones possibly guards or scouts that had more time building up their skills.
3. They were worker drones they are of a sort who build stuff not the sort who fight so they were weaker than the previous two ones.
4. The show is being lame

Overall there is no excuse to allow Bumblebee to take one out with a kick to the head. that's like throwing a beer can at a Rhino and rather absurd.

I expect Irish Mikey will be taking the mickey out of that bit for sure on another podcast in the not to distant future.

whoa! three in a row!

Umm, the reason I thought insecticons were dealt with so easily was the fact that megatron basically had to wrestle one.

Now everyone has guns.

pewpew > sumo

One insecticon nearly killed Megatron. Megatron could have easily killed all four Autobots until Prime arrived in Orion Pax pt 3. Yet all the autobots were shown to have zero issues against SWARMS of insecticons. It's not even close to consistent.

Originally Posted by RandomFactor Swindle stole my money, Minerva stole my heart.

And Arcee's pewpew wasn't doing her a lot of good against the one on Cybertron...

Originally Posted by RandomFactor Swindle stole my money, Minerva stole my heart.

Given that Optimus can go toe-to-toe physically with Megatron I am not sure it's that far-fetched to see how BB and OP could contend with a few insecticons.

To elaborate, we see 5 insecticons break off as the "rear guard" to engage the autobots. Acree attempts to pursue Airrachnid. BB apparently guns 2 of them down but then we immediately see at least 4 on screen engaging OP and BB while Arcee speeds off after Airrachnid. Either additional were sent after the autobots or the 2 that were "killed" by BB shrugged off the shots and circled squeezing in a few more shots before taking off after Arcee.

While the odds would be substantially in favor of the insecticons 3v2, if you can soften them up with gun/blaster shots then I can see how the autobots win. If the end scene where OP windmill slams insection #2972 onto insecticon #2973 had ended with them being exhausted/collapsing rather than just standing and semi-shrugging it would've been a lot more consistent.

Stretching it? Probably, more likely it's snapping it as a result of stretching. The most likely answer (yay occam's razor) is what was mentioned in the podcast that the writer was misinformed or a similar answer.

ninja edit: As to Arcee's blasters, have they ever been shown to do substantial damage to anything? (serious question, I can't recall)

Meh. These things have been portrayed as forces of nature. So much that they can take on Megatron himself and when the autobots learn they are on Earth they rush to the scene to stop a single one. This episode flushed all that down the toilet and made them out to be little more than larger Vehicons, and they were dispatched just as easily. The Autobots literally just stood in a circle and shot in all directions just like they were fighting Vehicons. It was lame. That's all there is to it.

Originally Posted by RandomFactor Swindle stole my money, Minerva stole my heart.

The Insecticon nerf annoyed me too. I don't even want to bother justifying it or making up an explanation for it. Unless a reason was stated in the show, it was just blatant cheating.