In contrast in the Girl Who Loves Powerglide he is quite calm until the Decepticon Undersea HQ base is in tatters. In Countdown to Extinction after the Ultimate Doom, Megatron calm saying something like 'I have only lost a spaceship, not a war'.

This is a bit weird and where are the Fembots. Given references to Autobots on Cybertron in earlier episodes, it seems like they have all left Cybertron by now (excluding Alpha Trion).

I would have loved to see this scene as described at the 12:52 minute mark.

 

Hopefully, times have changed for the better.

I know some people say that Beast Wars is a pseudo-sequel to the original cartoon. But sometimes I think that season 3 is a pseudo-sequel to seasons 1 and 2, with all the changes.

 

I'm probably going to try and start putting up my reviews for this week tomorrow evening, but for the first time in a while I actually mapped out the dates and episode groupings to finish G1 and found that allowing for 1 week for The Movie by itself, a 5-episode week for all parts of Five Faces of Darkness, and a 5-episode week at the end of S3 to avoid cutting apart The Return of Optimus Prime, we'll finish up with The Rebirth in the last week of November. It's taken a little longer than I expected to do the series, and the finish line is in sight now (although it sounds like a lot when you realize that goal is like 10 weeks away still) but man it'll have been a 6-month run to reach the end of the line.

Knowing that we basically have 2-and-a-bit months to go, I'll probably put up a "what's next" style poll in about a month's time. Give us some time to figure out where we go from here. The probable options will be:

1) Straight on to Headmasters
2) Stick to wide-release-in-the-west series (next would be Beast Wars)
3) Vote on the next series
4) Pull the plug due to lack of interest (which might not be the end of some sort of group rewatch in general, but might just force some sort of re-evaluation of how it gets done.)

 

It's established that Elita and company work relatively separately from Alpha Trion. They have their own base and it seems like they only contact him for important stuff like missions or when they needed to change their base location due to the Decepticons discovering their current one.

But in that episode it's made out that AT is hidden somewhere. The title is even meant to be a reference to Optimus having to find AT's base so that he can save Elita. But in spite of the fact that it's seemingly established that he's able to hide himself and his various resistance members all over Cybertron, Megatron and company just stroll into his shop looking for the key to Vector Sigma with apparently little to no effort in discovering where he was hiding.

So either that's just a bad oversight, or it means that Shockwave is terribly inept at his job given that Megs was on Cybertron for less than a day and found the apparently long-hidden leader of the Cybertronian resistance.

 

To be fair, I don't think Shockwave's had a break, much less a day off, in like millions of years so he's probably not operating at peak efficiency anymore. Makes it all the more impressive that he never complained or lapsed in his duty over the years. That mech's got some serious work ethics. No wonder Megatron keeps praising him.

Kinda makes it sad that the first time Shockwave ever gets some time off is when Unicorn eats him and his command center in the deleted scene from the movie.

 

Go on to headmasters.

 

Really would like to see a series 2.5 and have one character who was on Cybertron for the most part over the last 4million years tell to an Autobot like Bumblebee (who crashed on the Ark) and the viewers what life was like on Cybertron over the last 4M years, their contact with Alpha Trion and their contact with the Fembots (if any).

By the time of this episode, I think the Fembots could have been killed and the other Autobots fled Cybertron after the Child's Play episode, given that Alpha Trion has seeming no Autobot looking out for him on Cybertron, in this episode.

I think at this point the Decepticons have located Alpha Trion's secret base. Maybe Shockwave is reluctant to go in for the kill, or the Decepticons think that Alpha Trion is more beneficial alive (a potential hostage) than dead.

I also think that Shockwave has a lot of respect for Alpha Trion, given that for 4million years they survived on Cybertron for 4M years with very low energy levels. Maybe to survive, both teams organized a cease-fire given the low energy levels and allowed each team to build up a small supply of energy. Not sure how long a cease-fire would have lasted though. In essence, Shockwave only promised Megatron, he would maintain Decepticon control on Cybertron, he never promised total elimination of the remaining Autobot forces on Cybertron.

In this episode, Shockwave tells Megatron that Alpha Trion has the key to Vector Sigma. It almost sounds like Shockwave lost the key in a poker match. I also speculate that maybe Shockwave knew of a potential threat of a Quintesson attack and made some arrangement with Alpha Trion for each side to have new troops for possible defence against an external attack. Maybe the Decepticons got new troops with Alpha Trion's consent, but Shockwave had to hand back the key to Vector Sigma.

 

Does he get eaten? I thought he just gets crushed.

 

Huh, the Wikipedia doesn't specify (could have sworn that he got sucked in or something but apparently not). Although judging by panel provided by the 20th Anniversary comic adaptation, he apparently got bisected by Unicron's eyebeams.

Either way, Shockwave can't catch a break unless he's dead and even then, I'm pretty he's going to be punished for his evil-doings by never-ending office work.

 

It's Shockwave. He'd probably enjoy that. All those forms and database entries. Very logical, very systematic. So soothing.  

 

AERIAL ASSAULT

THE SHORT VERSION
"That time Megatron tried to take over the world with a giant, purple, robot griffin" seems like the kind of thing you'd make up to poke fun at silly cartoon plots, but here we are...

REVIEW
Yeah, this is a silly one. It's nice to have the Aerialbots built on after their debut. And even nicer that they do it for a pair of bots besides the leader when most of the time the combiner sets usually get personalities for the core bot (in this case Silverbolt) and the limbs are all secondary characters becuase nobody cares about them until they form their combined mode.

The subplot with Hassan and Ali and the region they were in was also kind of cool too. Make no mistake, the generically middle eastern area they were using was handled fairly stereotypically, but at least it wasn't quite as bad as "Carbombya" and Abdul Fakkadi.

Unfortunately, things kind of go to hell for this episode becuase a) it's surprisingly sparse and b) Megatron's plot is completely bonkers nonsense. To the former, I think this is one of my shorter recap thoughts sections of the series largely because there was long sequences where nothing happened that was worth joking about and before I knew it we were 15 minutes into the episode and very little had happened. To the latter, I know Transformers is a kids toy property and they wanted to do quirky and entertaining things, but an army of drone planes and a giant purple griffin bot that serves as a flying fortress with head lasers and prehensile hair tentacles? That's supposed to ensure world domination for the Decepticons (their words in the dialogue of this episode.) This is weirder than drilling to the earth's core for green crystals. Or drilling under the arctic for green crystals. Or stealing a mayan temple's giant green crystal that keeps a huge beam of energy from within the planet contained. Or anything else the series has done involving green crystals.

Don't get me wrong, it doesn't make the episode bad, just kind of bland and forgettable aside from the insanity of the plot. It's an episode that's more watchable for some of its meme-y goodness than it is for interesting battles and entertaining moments.

THOUGHTS AND MUSINGS

Spoiler

-How dumb is the shopkeeper/mechanic/junkyard guy that catches Hassan stealing the motorcycle wheel? He takes the wheel to prevent its theft, then angrily chucks it at Hassan, allowing him to grab it and get away clean.

-Where this episode is taking place is never actually said. It's apparently not Carbombya, but nowhere does it ever say where it actually is. TFWiki says that the Allspark Almanac would later claim that it's Iran, but that doesn't make sense given that the Allspark Almanac is an Animated sourcebook, not directly G1-related. Also Iran didn't have a monarchy by the time this episode was created, and that fact will be important later.

-And it's the Combaticons, 5 episodes before we get introduced to them! Hooray for continuity inconsistencies!

-And Dirge is here too for some reason!

-The Autobots' solution to getting Slingshot out of the cave is to make an arch with their bodies to support the rubble while Hoist hauls him out. But as soon as they let go, the rubble collapses and exposes much of the cave entrance behind them. So clearly they removed some of the rubble. Why not just climb over what was left instead of the convoluted plan they used? It's especially claer that they could've done this when another Aerialbot climbs out from behind the pile after the fact (I don't know which one, I suck at IDing them besides Silverbolt and Slingshot)

-It's a weird rescue party of Autobots that comes to the Aerialbots Rescue. Ratchet and Hoist make sense, but Jazz doesn't do a damn thing and doesn't even speak.

-The Aerialbots are rather slwo to notice they're being disassembled.

-It's also weird to find out that being disassembled isn't a dangerous or harmful to them.

-And that the mechanics can take them apart without finding odd components inside. Raoul took one look under Tracks' hood to realize something wasn't right. Shouldn't these guys find somehting odd when there are transformation-necessary parts in areas of the planes where there shouldn't be any mechanics?

-Ok, someone does know something when he points out to Ali that the parts are too complex for their plan. But I guess that just means he still thinks they're regular plane parts that are just new and advanced, not that they're alien robot tech.

-For that matter, Swindle is right there. Shouldn't he notice?

-What was the point of Hassan using the metal bar to open the latch on the laundry truck? Those levers are designed to be hand-operated.

-It's rather amazing that the tiny parts of the Aerialbots that remain in the laundry cars are enough to form the entire toros of both Aerialbots.

-Here we go, the moment everyone's been waiting for: The giant purple griffin. Clearly the apex of Megatron's schemes and plans for world domination.

-Blast-Off doesn't see the big Autobot symbol on Skydive's plane nose? Man, he's just as bad at finding Autobots as Shockwave.

-It's very fortuitous that Slingshot's chest is just the right size to accommodate a car grill.

-There feels like a lot of stiff, slow animation in this episode.

-Stereotypical as it may be, the dunes, oases, vistas and buildings in this nameless middle eastern country are actually pretty well done and interesting to look at.

-So Megatron builds a giant griffin fortress thing and its only apparent weapon is forehead lasers? This really is a bad plan.

-There's an audio error late in the episode that always sticks with me. After Slingshot falls onto Onslaught, he shouts "get this Autobot off of me, so I can blast him into obl-" cutting off where he's apparently supposed to say "oblivion". The dialogue remains muted until midway through a later line, resuming with "-nite and transform to Bruticus!". It's a weird error that I remember being in the Rhino release too, not just the Shout one I'm watching.

-Where did Ramjet come from?

-In general there's a lot of quiet or muted sound effects.

-The griffin has prehensile tentacle monster self-defence hair? OK then.

-So Slingshot gets the panel put into his chest and it just magically installs. So what's the point of Ratchet or anyone else doing it for him? Does Ratchet just pretend he's more necessary than he is to justify his job?

-Superion no longer sounds like Sludge. That's good and disappointing at the same time.

-Ali's an idiot for believing that a giant robot building an even more giant purple griffin robot was going to bring him "World domination."

-The weird scream that comes after Ali's complaint sounds clearly like Megatron, but the camera remains on Ali and its his mouth that moves. Honestly, neither one really makes sense, but I like the idea that the voice is accurate and Megatron responds to Ali's whining with angry intelligible nonsense out of frustration.

-You rarely get to see a combiner tactically separate mid-fight. It's a cool way for them to make this fight different.

-All the Decepticons go flying off into the distance for no good reason at all. Does the desert have no gravity?  

-OMG! Hassan is Prince Jumal! What an unexpected and totally not foreshadowed outcome!

-How would Ali not recognize the ruler of his freaking country?

-Slingshot totally is an old junker. Jumal never actually says he didn't mean that.

FAVORITE LINES
"Megatron, you promised me world domination!"
"RRRrraarrrrrhghhhhggghhhh!!! You'll be lucky if I let you live, fool!"
-Ali acts like a spoiled child and it breaks Megatron's speech processor. Seriously, his angry shout has to be heard to be believed.


Final Grade: C

 

Yeah, never really enjoyed Aerial Assalt, but glad there are some good ones to come, namely Starscream's Brigade and War Dawn. Best of all BOT (maybe not).

 

I'm going to have a triple bill of reviews tomorrow. I finished War Dawn and just need to write the "review" piece for my submission. Plus I have about 5 minutes left on Trans-Europe Express and all of Cosmic Rust left to watch. I just didn't get a chance to watch much yesterday or anything today and it's already late. I figure there's no huge rush though. It's not like I'm going to leave this all weekend. I should be able to carve out about 40 minutes tomorrow to watch the rest of the episode content I have to finish (allowing for stops as I put down my thoughts) and then can compose the reviews in the evening or before I go to bed.

 

WAR DAWN

THE SHORT VERSION
Imagine Robocop, except instead of a cop he's a dock worker, and instead of it being a satire on 80s commercialism and consumer culture, it's an actual exercise in 80s commercialism and consumer culture designed to make you buy toy robots. Still fun though.

REVIEW
Kind of like The Search for Alpha Trion, this is an episode that delves into the background of the series and characters in a way that we don't often get. It's a lot of fun to see the origins of Optimus Prime and some of the earliest points of the great war. A lot of the episode is kind of crazy, but it's the best kind of crazy you can present.

It does require the Aerialbots to kind of roll back on their personal growth from their debuts, suddenly going back to thinking the war is stupid and humans are worthless. But that's fine because the rest of the episode is an enjoyable ride.

It also doesn't make a ton of sense from a time travel perspective either since there's a bit of fudging in terms of who knows what and when, and how much Optimus and company would remember from that time. But who cares, time travel is crazy and usually full of some inconsistencies.

This is one of those iconic season 2 episodes that I think is essential viewing for the series and one of the fun examples of the series thinking outside the box from its usual plots. It also offers up a bunch of unique character designs and new transformers, which is a rarity by this point in the series given how big hte cast had gotten.

Really, I struggle to find anything that makes me really really dislike the episode or criticize it. I'm not going to hold its smaller little nits against it because it's so fun and important to the franchise.

THOUGHTS AND MUSINGS

Spoiler

-I go through a bit of a love-hate relationship with David Wise episodes. I used to recognize that most of the episodes I really like were his doing. Then I found there were a bunch that I didn't like as much. Then I realized that he probably had the best chance to impress me simply on volume because he wrote the most episodes out of any one writer who worked on the series. Then I decided that I didn't like the fact that he recycled his scripts so much and that the plots in this series came from or were re-used in other series with only superficial changes. In the end I think I decided that most of that is irrelevant and that his episodes simply have to stand up or fall down on their own merit. Spoilers: This is an episode that holds up very nicely.

-For what's supposed to be a spirited dogfight, one that prompts Slingshot to remark about how maneuverable the Seekers are, it's actually a fairly boring battle to watch.

-First off, we've already seen that the Seekers' jet mode is supposed to be to scale with the real jet they're taken from. Dr. Arkeville already was shown fitting neatly into the cockpit just like any normal fighter jet. So how did Starscream fit like 10 people into a space on the underside of his body?

-In a fun coincidence (which is likely just to save time on recording lines for the episode), the most audible screaming voice of the humans Starscream ejects sounds just like Silverbolt.

-People would probably have a hard time hanging on the wings of the Aerialbots if they're moving at flight speed.

-So this episode is supposed to take place after The Key to Vector Sigma, which ended with the Aerialbots learning a valuable lesson about not disrespecting humans or the other Autobots. But here the non-Silverbolt crowd are kind of right back to being jerks like they were in that episode before their moral awakening. It's almost like maybe this was supposed to be set before Aerial Assault given that Slingshot is one of the bots that actually makes friends with Hassan/Jumal (or maybe he's just become bitter once he realized that Jumal insulted him at the end of the episode  )

-The Aerialbots were created "a few weeks ago". One of the rare instances of the passage of time being acknowledged within the series and between episodes. If only it wasn't part of a weird continuity cock-up decsribed above.

-Optimus' "they'll understand soon enough" seems incredibly ominous.

-So... Omega is now the primary method of reaching Cybertron? They don't bother taking over a Space Bridge anymore? Or even trying to build one on their own?

-Starscream has a rather silly smirk as he sits there getting chewed out by Megatron.

-Normally when the Decepticons use the Space Bridge to head to Cybertron, they arrive in Shockwave's command center. Here they arrive in what looks like a run down and abandoned building. And all the area outside is suddenly decrepit and decaying. Did they have to rework where the landing spot is, or did Shockwave just let the whole planet go to hell in the few weeks it's been since The Search for Alpha Trion?

-Using a time machine to gather energy seems horribly inefficient. Time travel is rarely a low-energy activity.

-The Aerialbots really are stupid. Any idiot should be able to hear the insincerity in Starscream's voice.

-Is the Aerialbots' scream as they get zapped by the Chronosphere the same scream that was used when the diplomats fell out of Starscream? Is that why they sounded the same?

-Optimus Prime has a machine in front of him that is capable of time travel, and that just sucked a bunch of his troops back into the past with no other known means of return besides "the long way" of sitting around for a few million years. Obviously the prudent thing to do is BLOW IT UP!

-It's kind of fun that the Decepticons basically check out on the plot in the present-day timeframe at less than 9 minutes into the episode. They just leave Optimus and company in the room with the Chronosphere and the opportunity to try and repair it.

-The Golden Age of Cybertron seems awfully literal.

-Several aerialbos suddenly seem like they have really full lips.

-There's a river on Cybertron. A literal river. With water. On a planet of mechanical beings. Why?

-In what's likely a cost-cutting measure, Orion Pax is voiced by Laurie Faso, the voice of Fireflight the Aerialbot, negating an extra actor being cast in the episode. Corey Burton also pulls double duty as Dion and voicing the younger Alpha Trion instead of John Stephenson. But the most interesting casting is someone new: Ariel is voiced by Samantha Newark, aka the title character from Jem.

-Laurie Faso also voiced Raphael in the second Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze.

- Orion Pax has huge pouty lips too.

-So does Dion.

-The troop transport Decepticons are kind of cool. The idea that all the little cubes are bots and then the truck is a bot too. That would be something that would make a great (and probably expensive) toy.

-The big thing that Orion and the others think makes the Decepticons cool is that they can fly. But it sure looks like Orion can fly when he tries to attack Megatron for shooting Ariel.

-Speaking of, Ariel takes a pretty brutal hit. It's almost The Movie level violence.

-So does Orion for that matter. It's brief, but you can actually see that the cannon beam punches clean through his chest and exits out his back.

-Dion doesn't seem to take nearly as grisly looking a blast, only getting hit with a troop's laser pistol in his chest and leaving no obvious wound like the others. And yet he's the one who dies.

-Yes, it's not shown, but according to TFWiki, Hasbro and David Wise's official stance on this episode is that in spite of never seeing any sort of resolution, Dion does indeed get killed in the attack and is not rebuilt as was popular fan theory for years. According to the wiki... well, let's save that one for later. (I realize I'm being inconsistent with my spoiler policy since I haven't been shy about noting that Orion Pax is Optimus. I expect most people reading these know the bulk of the series' story beats, but I still want to save some things for the proper point of reveal). I'm trying to think: is he the first Autobot or Decepticon in the series that's not some nameless mook (like a Reflector or Insecticon clone) to be killed through combat? Alpha Trion sacrifices himself to reactivate Vector Sigma, but that's not the same as getting shot dead. I tried to look it up on the wiki, but the article on death doesn't list any pre-movie deaths in the G1 cartoon. Heck, it doens't even list Dion's.

-It's surprisingly creepy to see Silverbolt cradle Orion's head as he just lays there lifeless, mouth agape.

-Here we get to see a Guardian Robot. In The Secret of Omega Suprme Optimus is surprised that Omega was a Guardian Robot back on Cybertron. But the Guardian Robots are portrayed as being blue Omega Supremes. No explanation is given to why Omega got a different color scheme or unique name.

-Oh wow, is Thundercracker ever not the right voice. Not only is he missing the metallic robot sounding processing, but it's clearly Wally Burr filling in and not John Stephenson.

-Alpha Trion gets a different voice too. There's no doubting that it's Corey Burton. I guess it's not surprising that his voice is changed since Stephenson is the usual voice of Alpha Trion in addition to Thundercracker.

-I get building Orion Pax into a stronger body to fight the Decepticons, but why the sudden change in his voice?

-And the big question, why does Optimus seem to remember none of this until the Aerialbots bring it up to him at the end of the episode? Beyond just that, this implies he was always fully aware that Alpha Trion was his creator, even though he is shocked at the revelation in The Search for Alpha Trion, as he was regarding his schematic similarities to Elita-1.

-A guardian robot gets its head blown off, and then a bunch of nameless Decepticon troops bite it as Optimus attacks. This is by far the most violence the series uses before The Movie.

-Obviously they can't, but what an ending it would've been if the Aerialbots had sacrificed themselves in the past to preserve the timeline.

-Why did the Aerialbots after Silverbolt make Transformation noises as they emerged from the Chronosphere's field?

-Ratchet's little bit at the end about the Aerialbots' experience in the past is funny in hindsight, knowing that later series tend to make Ratchet more cantankerous and impatient.

FAVORITE LINES
"A warrior doesn't need a head. Just a good, strong body."
-Megatron's belief about the Guardian Robot also explains why it's nobody's fault but his own that his troops are so incompetent.


Final Grade: A+

 

TRANS-EUROPE EXPRESS

THE SHORT VERSION
What is this, the third "big race" type plot we've had?

REVIEW
If parts of War Dawn were the good kind of crazy, this is the... weird kind of crazy. The actual plot of the Pearl of Bahoudin and everything around it is weird and without much foundation or structure. But while I was entirely forgiving of War Dawn's oddities, I can't quite forgive everything this episode tries to get away with. Still, in spite of its insanity, plot-wise, and the unsurprising fact that this episode is one of the ones that David Wise recycled for other series (thus explaining how un-transformers-y it can feel at points.) there's some good comedy and very creative animation going on to carry things. In fact, this is an episode where I think the visuals are more fun and important to the review than the plot itself and are what salvages it to getting a solid, above-average grade.

THOUGHTS AND MUSINGS

Spoiler

-Megatron ties that guy up with the rug, but as soon as he shrugs it falls right off. Bang-up job of securing your hostage, Megs.

-Soundwave's energy scanner makes the noise of doors opening on Star Trek.

-Small aside as the race starts and we get a good look at Smokescreen. This episode marks the final speaking appearances of Bluestreak, Sunstreaker, and Smokescreen. All appearances for them from now on are non-speaking cameo or background roles.

-Augie kind of has a point: computer brains or nots, the Autobots aren't bound by the manufacturer's specs of the car modes they inhabit. There's no reason not to believe that they aren't capable of top speeds or handling capabilities beyond that of normal human-made vehicles. That does sorta give them an unfair advantage.

-I like that we go back to the Decepticons after the race starts and they've managed to already find an archeologist and locate the Pearl. There's no kidnapping, no intensive search. They get basically the biggest stretch of success in their plan entirely off-screen.

-That's a freaky energon effect on Teranova's cuffs or whatever they are.

-Also the fact that Teranova escapes entirely as a background event as Megatron and Soundwave discuss the Europa 2000 is fantastic.

-Hoooooo wow. That map of Europe. I'm no going to go through all of its fantastically strange design choices and instead point out the thing that immediately strikes me as the most wrong: The Czechoslovakia name is just written badly as "Czech" which actually looks more like "Ciech" in a way that appears like someone whited out the first attempt at a Z and somehow this awful near-I is the better of their efforts.

-The Stunticons appearing as Sideswipe and Sunstreaker race down the road made me realize something: the number of Lamborghini bots in the series is a lot higher than you might think. There's the two aforementioned Autobots, Red Alert, and Breakdown. Granted they're not identical toy molds like the Seekers were, but it's still funny.

-The fact that the Autobots don't recognize the Stunticons is weird to me. But I guess it's no totally out of sync with the rest of the series where characters routinely miss obvious and visable faction symbols before they would even have to consider "hey, does that yellow indy car kind of look like Dragstrip?"

-Wheeljack does a lot of fancy driving to dodge Motormaster. Right up until he somehow gets overtaken and crushed in surprisingly graphic fashion.

-It's kind of funny to have Bluestreak riding on Wildrider after Bumblebee rode on Bluestreak. Symmetry! Sort of.

-Hey, it's Professor Teranova. I'd almost forgotten about him since he just miraculously escaped like 6-7 minutes ago.

-And I almost forgot about the Pearl of Bahoudin as well.

-Tracks' readout manages to identify the Stunticons before they say or do anything, which now brings into question my tacit acceptance of them not getting recognized earlier. But what's better is that it renders Wildrider and Breakdown as two-word names when they are usually accepted as single words (it turns out I was wrong to write "Dragstrip" earlier, as the apparent canonical name is "Drag Strip".) The display also botches Wildrider by IDing him as "Wird Rider" but that's just silly. At least hte rudimentary wireframe car designs are more or less accurate to their alt modes.

-We cut back to the Decepticons digging for the Pearl and find that Scavenger still hasn't dug anything up. In fact he only has a tiny hole. This race should be going on for hours if we're following the racers across multiple countries in Europe. So what's the deal with the dig? Is this like a city works project where Scavenger digs for half an hour, then takes a 20 minue coffee break, then repeats until he quits at 3pm?

-Now suddenly Scavenger has dug like 15-20 feet in mere minutes.

-I like that we constantly now refer to the Pearl as being powerful enough to master the entire world, but still have no idea what the heck it'll even do.

-"The first group of racers approaches the first finish line." So... there are multiple finish lines?

-The Pearl of Bahoudin is kind of disappointing. Its shell could've been better designed than just a bunch of random jewels shoved onto a gold sphere casing.

-Ahh, now we get the explanation that the Pearl is a piece of Decepticon tech.

-And we get some continuity in showing The Nemesis crash in a jungle area not out-of-line with where it's found in Microbots.

-Ok, I thought the weird jewel casing was something the humans added to protect against the Parl's powers. But it turns out it's just part of the pearl from the beginning. So it's the Decepticons I have to blame for the aesthetically awful design.

-Ok, nope. Megatron says a "Persian seer built this pure gold protective casing for it." So it's just an animation error to show the pearl in the casing when it's cracked out of the rock and not afterward. Woo! Confusing!

- The faded background of lightning strikes over a city as Megatron gloats about his plan is very anime-esque. It would look right at home in Headmasters.

-Where did Auggie get that blowtorch? Does he just randomly keep an acetylene tank in the back of his car? That seems kinda dangerous and unnecessary.

-More cool driving stunts from Bumblebee.

-By the power of greyskull!!!

-Ok, how is the wind heavy enough to blow Soundwave away, but not Auggie or his car.

-I'm realizing now that the series does a pretty bad job of giving the combiner forms differentiated personalities. For example, Menasor is supposed to be barely functional because the Stunticons hate each other and are a bunch of tangled neuroses that detract from their ability to function as a team. But we never get to see anything like that. Most of the combiner forms besides Computron just end up as generic good guys/bad guys without real personality of their own.

-Bluestreak's "such senseless violence" line is so out of place. It comes from nowhere and it doesn't fit at all with the fighting Bluestreak does throughout the series with no complaints. He also says it as he shoots not at Menasor himself, but at the ground in an attempt to cause Menasor to fall into the pit in front of him.

-Menasor erupting from the ground is really fun and different. This episode has a lot of very stylish action that's different from normal.

-So laser blasts don't do anything, but a car to the face takes out Menasor for good.

-After all the panic, it's a rather easy solution for Bumblebee just to shoot the pearl.

-And Bumblebee drops into some trees. The first trees we've seen anywhere in the vicinity of where they're fighting. It's been entirely mountains and rocky wastelands before this. Thank goodness for that convenient forest to break Bumblebee's fall.

-Where does Tracks assume that the whole race was a sham? Isn't it just as likely, if not more so, that it's legitimate and Megatron just knew it would be a chance to get Auggie's car? They really should've sold this better by laying in some clues.

-Tracks' line about the pearl casing "with any luck we'll get more than $20 million for it" puts the stress on the "more", as if at some point that figure had come up. But the money we heard about before was the $1 million grand prize. I suspect the line was supposed to emphasize the "$20 million" to highlight Tracks suggesting that they'll get a ton of money for charity, but it's one of those cases where the emphasis changes the contextual meaning.

-This whole fight occurred who knows how far away from civilization and Auggie just intends to walk back to the nearest city? Strange the Autobots don't even offer to drive him back.

-It's a silly gag, but why would the announcer be the only person left at the finish line after everyone else has gone home? Certainly he should've packed up and left too, unless he's the most dedicated professional ever.

FAVORITE LINES
"Keep driving like that and you won't live long enough to win it. Not that that'd be any great tragedy, but some decent people might get hurt!"
-Bluestreak's kind of a jerk. And if you close your eyes, you can almost imagine this is the same sort of jerk behavior that we got out of Cliffjumper in "Traitor"


Final Grade: B

 

COSMIC RUST

THE SHORT VERSION
The most low-key horrific, kid-scaring, death-including episode aside from The Movie. And also Dark Awakening.

REVIEW
So we had a rollicking history episode, a silly out-there sci-fi plot episode, and now we get something that tends towards being almost horror-like in its execution. The concept of cosmic rust is creepy, as is the way it causes its victims to fall apart and look like diseased, decrepit zombies. And the history of it decimating an ancient colony is even more horrifying. It's really effective given that 'creepy' isn't a direction that the series goes in all that often.

It's also a bit of a showcase for Perceptor again, for the first time since Microbots. That's cool as Perceptor is one of the interesting season 2 characters whose scientist leanings make him intriguing. Unfortunately for him he gets undone by the fact that he behaves incredibly stupidly at points along the way, being largely responsible for his own predicament on multiple occasions.

The big flaw in the episode is that its pacing is all wrong. It takes half an episode for the plot to really hit its stride, and by that point it wraps up before it can even build solid momentum. This actually feels like it would've been a good plot to split into a two-part episode while making the Autobots' infection the cliffhanger. As it stands it ends up being a rushed look at an interesting departure for the series (that it sadly never really gets back to) that teases potential it never ends up delivering on.

It's still fun though. We're actually closing out the series on a pretty strong note, it seems.

THOUGHTS AND MUSINGS

Spoiler

-When the title card came up and gave writing credit to "Paul Davids" I immediately said "I think I know that name." and had to look him up. He served as the production coordinator on this series for the back half of it after regular production coordinator Grant Moeller started focusing on The Movie. But more relevant to my familiarity is that he wrote the godawful "Jedi Prince" series of Star Wars novels: a batch of (I think) 6 novels aimed at young readers that told the totally insane and silly story of Emperor's illegitimate, mutant 3-eyed son and his involvement in a plot by the Empire to regain its former power, along with a whole bunch of other really terrible things. I read the books when I was like 10, but I was a dumb kid who didn't know how awful they were and gladly devoured anything I could that was Star Wars related.

-That's relevant because this story is decidedly not childish and silly. I guess Mr. Davids has some range. He'll also go on to write Chaos, Grimlock's New Brain, and Thief in the Night (aka the episode that made Casey Kasem quit the show).

-Look at the planet with the GIANT GLOWING AUTOBOT SYMBOL on its surface. What do you suppose the power output necessary to make that thing run would be?

-Megatron seems surprisingly rational at the start of this episode.

-You know, the ancient Autobot leaving the warning message probably would've been more believable if he didn't speak in rhyme like a cheesy b-movie.

-"He's right, the omens are ill." What a weird, random line for Astrotrain. That's two episodes in a row with odd lines out of nowhere.

-Starscream's attempts to "operate" the lightning bug look really, really inappropriate. Come on, animators. It's a family show.

-Why would the Autobots have such a dangerous weapon like that? And why would they build it to look like an earth bug that wouldn't have existed millions of years ago across the vast reaches of space?

-The cosmic rust infected asteroid seems to just up and start chasing Astrotrain of its own volition. It even gets a sound effect as it moves. Almost like it's alive. Is this secretly some sort of horror plot?

-How convenient of Starscream to have a set of forceps in his wrist.

-Perceptor receiving a science award meant for humans seems like an unfair competition. Like a college physics student winning an elementary school science fair.

-Look at that, Sparkplug and Carly get dressed up for the event, while Spike just wears a jacket over his jeans and usual work shirt.

-Also of note from that scene: Sparkplug owns at least two different suits, since this isn't the same one he wore in Desertion of the Dinobots.

-And there's something weird about Carly's face. It almost looks like Spike's face, like the animator didn't have a proper character sheet. Most obvious is that she dosen't have her usual blue eyes.

-Perceptor doesn't want the secret formula for corrostop to be discovered by the Decepticons because it contains rare elements. So obviously he decides the best way to avoid this is to loudly talk about how valuable it is, spill that one of its secret ingredients is rare (and valuable), and do so in a public forum where word can easily reach the Decepticons. Genius move, Perceptor. No wonder you won this prestigious science award thingy.

-It's kind of cute that one of the aerialbots thinks the statue of liberty is an old robot.

-It's also kind of funny that the Aerialbots say they're helping with the application of corrostop, but mostly they just stand there while all the other Autobots do all the work.

-Where did Wildrider and Drag Strip get a motorboat? or bot-sized water skis?

-I like that Optimus is just casually observing the statue of liberty, totally oblivious to Perceptor's calls for help.

-Speaking of, the statue of liberty is a cartoon-standard silver/gray instead of its actual greenish tint.

-The Decepticon air defences are literally to wheel the lightning bug out the access hatch on a wheeled dolly. That's great.

-Perceptor really is a dope. his exchange with Megatron is:
Megs: "help me."
Perceptor: "then we can have peace?"
Megs: "Sure. I have no reason to or history of lying to my enemies."
Perceptor: "So surrender that crazy new weapon first as a sign of good faith."
Megs: "I'll give it to you after you cure me. You now I'm good for it, man."
Perceptor: "Alright. Sounds good."

-It's literally halfway through the episode before the major plot of this story (Perceptor dealing with cosmic rust) kicks off. And that's with only a couple of small things happening beforehand.

-In real life, of course, rust is just metal oxidizing. But cosmic rust is apparently a literal viral illness, since Perceptor sees the cosmic rust "germs" under his microscope as little amoeba-like blobs with eyeballs in the middle of their forms.

-Perceptor has to frame Cosmic rust in the context of the Black Plague for Megatron? What guarantee would there be that he would even know what the Black Plague is?

-Perceptor demonstrates some terrible medical safety procedures by picking up Megatron's infected hand without any gloves or anything. Especially when he already KNOWS that its infected with a disease that targets metallic life-forms.

-Perceptor 5 minutes ago: Don't tell the decepticons about corrostop!
Perceptor right now: Hey, Megatron. Look at this. It's my super cool invention - Corrostop!  

-"Decepticons, we're about to be cured!" Since when were the other cons infected?

-Wouldn't Perceptor have been smart to figure out that he can't make any more corrostop before he frivolously applied a ton of it to the statue of liberty?

-Shiny, corrostop-covered Megatron seems like prime material for a chrom silver alternate figure release.

-Wow, that's got to be the biggest assemblage of Autobots outside the Ark that we've ever seen.

-It's a shame that Perceptor doesn't come with lens caps.

-Why didn't Optiums just pull the bomb off the platform and throw it away instead of fighting with Perceptor's restraints.

-Optimus shows just as terrible quarantine procedures as Perceptor.

-And now the bad medical procedures plague spreads to Ratchet and Ironhide.

-There was an autobot civilization on Antilla at the dawn of time.. So it was like:
Tuesday - the universe is created
Wednesday - life shows up on Cybertron
Thrusday - a bunch of new Cybertronians decide "to hell with this place" and take off for Antilla
?

-Watching the Autobots in the historical video decompose in rust is super creepy. The show has gotten progressively more violent as the season has gone on.

-Optimus, Ratchet, and Blaster are seriously infected by cosmic rust out of nowhere. They were fine just a minute ago, then in the span of a few minutes they're suddenly all covered in rust spots.

-It's nice that the lightning bug dolly has a small staircase on the back to make it easier for Megatron to climb onto the platform.

-the matter duplicator never worked, but all it took was for Perceptor to kick it a few times. This episode is just full of awful scientists. Hell, they make Starscream look downright competent. In fact, Starscream is one of the only ones who does look competent since he identifies the communications console at the beginning of the episode.

-Soundwave asks what Megatron's destination is even though he was standing right beside Megs to be able to put two and two together. I'd like to think he's not asking because he needs to know. He already does know and is just asking so that he can be a suckup to his boss.

-The Aerialbots don't look like they're infected with Cosmic Rust.

-Superion takes a minute to flex after combining. Fun.

-Soundwave is actually using his gun. That feels like a rare occurrence.

-And Megatron bails pretty quickly. One would think that it should be easy to beat a bunch of crippled, rusty autobots.

-Bumblebee's talk of "a lady" (meaning the statue) is odd. He seems more concerned that they saved a statue than he is that his whole race is no longer at risk of being killed by a super plague.

FAVORITE LINES
"It's some weird kind of heat ray. And it works!
-Silverbolt demonsrates the utmost faith in Decepticon weapons.


Final Grade: B-

 

And so I don't forget to do it later, our batch for next week which will complete season 2


1) Starscream's Brigade
2) The Revenge of Bruticus
3) Masquerade
4) B.O.T.

 

Really like War Dawn episode, I think a series following events in this episode would be really good to see.

One of the things that I found interesting is that 9M years ago, Starscream is not with Megatron, only Soundwave and Shockwave, apart from the Decepticon Trucks.

I would like to see how the seekers were created and see Starscream's development from a scientist in peacetimes to a warrior.

I like to think that Alpha Trion converted a lot of the beaten up robots into many of the S1 and S2 Autobots.

Another thing which interests me about this episode is what would have happened to the guardian robot in the present day. This is mainly because we do not know how Metroplex got to become sentient. I wonder could the Autobots have taken the guardian's personality component and used it on a newly built transformer.

 

Starscream's Brigade (I)

Spoiler: Starscream's Brigade: "He's been humiliated, kicked and spat on... and it's only 10:00 am."

Starscream's Brigade
Written by Michael Charles Hill

We open on what the episode helpfully informs us is the Guadalcanal in 1943.


So considerate.


The whole opening contains no dialogue and is shot entirely in shades of brown, so you already know it's an inaccurate depiction of the war because as we all know, the world was still grey during World War II. It didn't become colorized until after the war had ended.


Now, the use of laser weaponry, on the other hand, is actually historically accurate. The first experimental rifles were launched during World War II and although they didn't have a long lifespan on account of energy inefficiency, they were widely used by both the American and the Japanese army.

The Guadalcanal conflict was one of the last times they were used, so kudos to the creative team for showcasing for one of the lesser known facts of history.


Anyway, the war flashback might be mistaken as something out of GI Joe but it is really there to provide some visual exposition that quickly explains to the audience why there are military vehicles scattered about the island of Guadalcanal.


True, you could have had a character just talk about it and save some frames but this is a much more dynamic and visually interesting way of doing it and as such, I feel it was a creative decision worth commending.


By the way, because I feel this is also something worth mentioning, the script actually called for historically accurate vehicles. Now, what makes this something extra special is that it is wholly unnecessary to the story.


I'm assuming the historical accuracy only applied to the choice of vehicles and not their colors, but I've never heard of a tan jeep with a purple lid. Or a purple plane. Or a blue and green trunk.

Anyway, as you can see, we've transitioned to modern day.


Or 1985.


Or present time.

For some reason, the episode opts for redundancy and tells us the date twice, although I suppose it is entirely possible that the episode jumped twice in time and that the series doesn't take place in 1985. I suppose it also entirely possible that it does take place in 1985 and the "present time" refers to, well, the literal time of day.

But regardless of where in time we are, some things are timeless; like war and wouldn't you know, there's one as old as time being fought beneath the sea as we speak.

Yeah, it's Megatron and Starscream.


Starscream: "Shockwave this, Shockwave that. All I ever hear about is how great Shockwave is."

Were you really surprised?

I'd usually take a moment to poke fun of Shockwave but I honestly feel that he should be given his dues on this because all things considered, he's managed to do a bang-up job as Guardian of Cybertron.

When he told Megatron that Cybertron would remain the way he left all the way back in the first episode, Shockwave meant it.


Megatron: "Shockwave is an ideal soldier. He is both humble and respectful."

Amusingly, that means Shockwave is the anthesis of a Decepticon soldier which is what paradoxically makes him the ideal Decepticon soldier.


Starscream: "Shockwave has much to be humble about."

Okay, that is admittedly a pretty good burn.


Starscream: Name one thing that's so impressive about Shockwave.


Astrotrain: He's not you.
Ramjet: Didn't he guard Cybertron singlehandedly for millions of years?


Starscream: Anyone can do that with an army of droid. If he truly was a Deception warrior worthy of praise, he'd have defeated the Autobots long ago without the need to rely on droids to compensate for his own weaknesses.


Ramjet: He does have a lot of droids. He needs a hobby.
Astrotain: I think he already has one. Building droids.


Megatron: Enough. Why can't you be more like Soundwave, Starscream?


Megatron: He's not intimidated by Shockwave nor driven to pettiness like you.


Soundwave: ...


Shockwave: Vacation request number 102398.


Shockwave: Oh, I just know that Lord Megatron will grant my request this time.


Shockwave: Surveillance shows minimal Autobot activity, the energon storages are at an all-time high and security operates at peak efficiency.


Megatron: Soundwave, what are you doing?


Soundwave: Shockwave reports. Cybertron status updated. Surveillance increase in Autobot activity. The energon storages require replenishing. Security has been compromised. Shockwave believes presence of Cybertron to be utmost importance. Requests guardianship of Cybertron remain unchanged.


Megatron: Ah, Shockwave. He has guarded our homeworld of Cybertron well and even now, after millions of years, he works tirelessly to ensure Decepticon dominion over it.


Megatron: You should learn from his example, Soundwave. Perhaps if you spend half the time scouting for new energy sources that you do on your travel logs, Shockwave would not find his storages so depleted.


Soundwave: Affirmative, mighty Megatron.




Shockwave: 'And I want you to increase the production of your security personnel by 50 percent before the next deca-cycle.'


Shockwave: I suppose if I eliminate the remainder of my breaks, I may be able to reach that quota.


Shockwave: *sigh* Someday.


Starscrean: "Who can respect a leader who can't so much as respect the Autobots?"

I seem to recall a certain someone in early season 1 who took over the Decepticons in Megatron's absence and utterly failed to defeat the Autobots during his term of leadership. Now, the name escapes me but I do remember that he was blue, red and grey and complained a lot so that should help narrow it down.

Anyway, Megatron's got a burn of his own.


Megatron: "You'll never understand, Starscream. You lack the ability to see your own faults."

It's not as good as Starscream's but it gets the job done.


Especially when Megatron punctuates it by walking away afterwards meaning he basically delivered a triple diss: he did the talk to the hand, he insulted Starscream and then he just turned around and walked away.

Starscream is not pleased.


Starscream: "Nobody turns his back on me!"

You'd think he'd be happier about that given his treacherous nature - Actually, it makes a lot of sense now that I think about it. Starscream is a well-known backstabbers - every Decepticon knows this - so when someone chooses to turn their back on him, they're basically saying they don't consider him a threat and/or they don't believe he has the manifolds to actually shoot them in the back.

 

I would be fascinated to see some good fiction that would cover the 4M year gap. I guess he kept the remaining Autobots under wraps pretty, much and was able to remain leader for all this time (presumably) given low energy levels. I do not think he did such a bad job or had as easy as some people make out.