I don't find it repugnant at all. That's just your opinion.

 

Yes it is, that's why I said it.

 

I know.

 

I interrupt this to bring you Rail Racer!



This is the Japanese version. That one has the translucent parts. He might be one of the most... symmetrical combiners ever, due to how the three members combine. He's really cool overall. Now that black rod poking over his right shoulder? That's supposed to attach to the bottom of his shield, but it's held in place by a spring, and the mechanism doesn't work on mine anymore.

Honestly, I consider him to be one of the best pre-Combiner Wars combiners.

 

To weigh in on all this - Silverbolt is at least funny and endearing when the story calls for it, and he's a good person at heart. He does truly care for Blackarachnia. Side Burn is just gross.

 

Never found him funny, actually. The other characters ran laps around him in terms of being funny and endearing. I just was never endeared towards him (it took Beast Machines to finally make me like the guy).

 

(Although for the record, I think the concept of an Autobot getting the hots for a nonsentient vehicle could be fun as like a one-off thing, maybe riffing off the ideas from G1 Tailgate's bio. Not, you know... over and over and over again. To the distress of the vehicle's owner. Man, fuck Side Burn.) (NOT LITERALLY!)

 

I dunno. I actually liked it as a running gag. Plus, without it, Kelly would have felt really superfluous.

 

Kelly can be constantly accosted and caught up in the fights and actions of the various transformers without it always having to be Sideburn hitting on her car. The episode I'm doing tonight has her not interact with Sideburn once and it works.

I'm not even against him being a skeezebag on occasion. But it's basically all there is to his character.

 

EPISODE 14: THE DECEPTICONS (FOE? FRIEND!? BLACK CONVOY)
The Autobots wage their battles to defeat the evil forces of... them.

Spoiler

I think we might be hitting the turning point. After two weeks of "well this is OK I guess" and a week of "I don't know which direction the show is going except there was one pretty good" we get the best entry yet in this journey. One that, after a bit of consideration, I gave a vaunted A+ to. The high bar for this series has now been set.

Because hey, we've got new Predacons. Except they're not Predacons, they're Decepticons. And they're not Decepticons they're Combatrons. But that means they're actually Combaticons. And now I've gone cross-eyed.

Anyway, the newbies, the Decepticons get a not-unfamiliar origin as corrupted protoform good guys. But it's an origin that works well when it's handled with care and this one is handled with all due care... mostly. It started off with all the UFO talk which led up to a big UFO reveal and then was entirely irrelevant thereafter. I'm not begrudging them finding a crashed ship with the protoforms in it, but maybe just dial back the "there have been UFO sightings for centuries (and one of them kinda looks familiar, lol) and maybe it means something!" to just "there's a set of coordinates on the microchip and reports of UFO sightings in that area" just to keep the throwaway portion of the plot a little more contained.

But after that? It's gold. The Decepticons are fun as homages to the classic Combaticons and they give the Predacons more firepower at a point where there current lineup is starting to look a little bit more fragile and beatable. One could argue that they should've played up the connection to the classic Combaticons a little more as a bit of fanservice, and maybe given them a name that's not the main faction name from most of the other continuities under this generational umbrella, but those are kind a small potatoes complaints that are more about fandom baggage than the show's own self-contained identity.

And then there's Scourge. From a modern perspective the idea of oooooh, evil black Optimus is a bit of a tired trope that has been done so many times it has little impact anymore. But here we back at the beginning of the road with the second ever incarnation of this character type and the first that made it to western shorts (and honestly the first potentially "real" one because Black Lio Convoy was kinda...... ehhhhhhh.... as a dry run). We don't learn a ton about him yet, but it's a strong start and a good setup to lots of potential down the road.

And that's really what makes this episode work: Potential. This is the one that helps give us a strong direction for at least the next little while and possibly as far as the rest of the entire series. And that's what RiD needed at this point to help it focus and draw itself into a tighter narrative moving forward.

Alright RiD. You've done the set up. Now pay it off.

Spoiler

-We open with Koji narrating from a book about UFOs. And then saying that his dad was one of the scientists often called to research claims of sighting objects in the sky. So he's an energy scientist/archeologist and Ufologist?.

This is accompanied by shots of UFOs and such around the world. Including.... something very familiar, just in a different color

Cosmos? You can't fool me with that new paint job.​

-Optimus is shocked that "many people on Earth refuse to believe they exist."

Ok yes, we're in a show about giant alien robots but that doesn't automatically mean that every UFO sighting is actually something. Because chances are that there's not dozens of species or hundreds of aliens out there all interested in just cruising into Earth's atmosphere to spook some humans. Unless it's an intergalactic sport or prank or something.

-That's when T-AI pops in to tell Optimus and Koji that she's cracked the security on Dr. Onishi's microchip from a few episodes ago. On it is a set of coordinates and an image of a rock formation in the US.

No, it's actually in the US this time. It's not somewhere in Japan that's masquerading as America via the dub. Unless the RiD crew went to the trouble of rigging up a fake map.

Actually in America!​

-Nope, not doctored. I watched the scene in Car Robots and its identical. Also wow does Yuki/Koji ever obviously have a grown woman voicing him. When he was narrating the opening shots of UFOs I honestly thought it was going to be revealed to be T-AI narrating this bit because it in no way sounded like a boy's voice.

-Koji blurts out that the rock formation is "Castle Peak" which was once home to eyewitness accounts of a UFO landing.

-The Autobot Brothers and Optimus head out to the location to investigate. Cue our first shots of the CGI space bridge interior in a few episodes.

We paid a fortune for this CGI, we'd better start using it.​

-Cut to Castle Peak, where guess who's hiking at its base? Kelly! Just in time to see the space bridge open and the Autobots pop out. Thankfully without her car Sideburn has no interest in creeping on her.

-The Autobots find a cloud of dust around someone working at digging up the foot of the mountain. It's Slapper, leading to a silly moment where he and Sideburn interact without recognizing who they're talking to.

-Sky-Byte hears a scream and assumes Slapper got his tongue caught in a drill  

but then he causes a cave-in which buries him in rubble and collapses the ground under Kelly. Pretty sure she should be dead now. That's a downer.

-The collapse does have a positive though: it unearths a massive metal object that sure looks like a UFO.

Alright everyone, remember where we parked.​

-Optimus points out that the ship is actually Cybertronian. 60 years ago a ship with 6 Autobots on it was sent to Earth and vanished, apparently having crashed. Ominous!

-Optimus then checks inside the ship with what looks like x-ray vision. Great, so the guy who's stalking small children can also theoretically see inside their houses at all times. That's incredibly unsettling.

Stalkermus Prime is watching you sleep.​

-Optimus spots the 6 pots with what look like protoforms in it. Optimus even says they're in "proto-entity form"

At last, we've found the lost Cybertronian boy band!​

-The Predacons swoop in and claim salvage rights on the ship and its crew. At least until Megatron shows up and says that he intends to take the crew (which he does) while leaving the ship for the Autobots.

-So Megs scoops up the pods in his hand mode and bails, leaving the Predacons to fight the Autobots. Unfortunately for them Optimus is able to fight them all off single-handedly.

-Sideburn debates how Megatron knew about the protoforms inside the ship, inadvertently calling them "Cybertrons." It's likely it was a misnaming of "Cybertronians", but it also lines up to Sideburn using the Japanese name for Autobots. Maybe that's what happened? The original Japanese dialogue mentioned "Cybertrons" and the writers assumed that was the term for "people from Cybertron" rather than the Japanese faction name for the Autobot group.

-Back at their base Megatron does use the term "protoform". Once. Then he calls them "proto-entities again"

-Megatron's evil laugh sounds downright hilarious when I'm watching it at 150% normal speed.

-Meanwhile at an American military base Kelly is sitting in a jeep for some reason. Good of the military to randomly show up and dig her out of the rubble.

I think things are taking their toll​

-It's regular American military base with tanks and jeeps and gun trucks and space shuttles taking off like fighter jets. Completely normal.

Gotta get their flights in before they get bought out by Amazon or Space X​

-As all of this is happening Megatron and the Predacons are up on a nearby hill watching the base and deciding that their new protoforms will scan the vehicles present for their powerful new alt modes.

-Megatron allays Sky-Byte's concerns about the protoforms' loyalty by saying he'll "infuse them with code from (his) own spark energy." So the energy that comprises their metaphorical/literal soul has computer code in it? Come on, guys. You can't just string words together and pretend it makes sense.

-  All the Predacons celebrate the traits that the new bots would inherit from Megatron. Except Slapper who rattles off an extensive list of negative traits (vain, power-hungry, greedy, bombastic, etc) and gets punched in the face for it.

Pow! right in the kisser.​

-And so the Preds have to bring each individual pod to the base so it can scan the vehicles with a little camera eye on the top. What ever happened to stuff like the G1 sky spy satellite that could collect alt mode data remotely?

-This leads to Slapper and Dark Scream getting shot at by one of the gun platform trucks, and then a stray shot hitting the jeep Kelly is sitting in. That's twice this episode where she should probably be dead.

-But instead of dying she is thrown free from the blast, lands on her feet somehow and runs away screaming that she's just going to stay home from now on. That won't save you, Kelly. We've seen that Optimus and the Autobots can see through walls. They'll see you there too.

-The pod our two Preds are carting around scans the gun truck with a classic grid effect on it that's reminiscent of Galvatron's reformatting in The Movie. Cool throwback.

-This cuts to the Autobot base where Koji and T-AI are watching the events at the base. So the Autobots have eyes on what's happening but haven't dispatched anyone to the base to stop the Preds? ok?

-T-AI: "The vehicles on that base all have one thing in common."

Koji: "They're weaponry!"

me: "...Even the space shuttle?"

-Now the Autobots are dispatched.

-This way we can get fresh stock footage of them transforming when they show up

-And they show up in time to meet the newest Predacon: Onslaught Mega-Octane.

The Repaint Brigade begins here.​

-Megs introduces him as the "first Decepticon" That's going to be the name of this sub-group just to make things confusing.

-Megatron gloats about Mega-Octane's loyalty and the conversion of the protoforms. He says "Very soon, now the other will join him!" That's an awkward line composition.

-Mega-Octane is a giant suck-up. Also his attack is kind of lazy as it's just him bending over and firing the cannons on his back.

-The Preds start scanning the other vehicles: A tank, a helicopter, a jeep... this seems oddly familiar for some reason  

-Sky-Byte hesitates and gets shot by Optimus causing the pod to fall and shoot its scanner beam into the air. It misses hitting a vulture and instead hits a space shuttle.

So our lineup is gun truck, tank, helicopter, jeep, and shuttle. That's right...

And continues here​

The "Decepticons" are just redresses of the classic G1 Combaticons (or Combatrons in Japan. In fact in Car Robots this group is even straight-up called the Combatrons). This is because their toys are re-issues of the original Combaticon toys in different colors. In both markets. The RiD Decepticons are differently colored from the Car Robots Combatrons who are both differently colored from the G1 Combaticons. And the G2 Combaticons. So if you ever wanted 4 different colored versions of Bruticus, now's your chance!

Or hey, if I want to push it, I could choose to call my G1 Swindle an early prototype of RID's Jeep Decepticons (name forthcoming when we get there)

-But there's still a 6th pod remaining, which Megatron swoops in and grabs.

-Meanwhile Kelly has stolen a fuel tanker truck in a desperate attempt to escape the combat zone. She doesn't notice or care that it's full of rocket fuel.

-Today in "the writers can't do math" X-Brawn calculates that if the truck is hit with laser fire it will cause an explosion that engulfs everything in a 10 mile radius. That's some rocket fuel.

X-Brawn was doing the Zack Galifianakis algorithm meme before it was cool​

-Megatron rationalizes that by scanning the tanker, the energy in the rocket fuel will make the resultant Decepticon "the most powerful"

...yeah, not sure it works that way. But what do I know, I'm not a giant robot with a hand mode.

-Kelly swerves the truck to avoid running into a massive pot hole, but ends up causing the trailer to start rolling over. Optimus has to rush in and save it and in the process when the scanner beam from Megatron and the pod hit the truck, it also analyzes Optimus too.

Oh no, Optimus is now a Herald of Unicron!​

-The pod reveals its contents and the truck emerges. Naming itself "Scourge" it transforms into a somewhat-doppelganger of Optimus Prime (with a bit more G1 styling than this series' Optimus/Fire Convoy has). What a twist!!!

You know all those black repaints you complain about? It's all his fault.​

With our complete set of Decepticons" revealed it's time to run down the names and voices. Even though the names haven't been revealed in the show besides Mega-Octane.

Mega-Octane (the Onslaught clone) is Bob Papenbrook, most notable as the voice of Rito Revolto in the original Power Rangers. In Japan he's called Dolrailer and is voiced by Holly Kaneko (the voice of Guiledart in BW Neo)

Our Brawl clone is Armorhide. Voiced by series writer and prolific voice actor Richard Epcar. His Japanese counterpart is named Dangar and voiced by Mach Alert (Prowl)'s voice actor Takayuki Kondo pulling double duty

The Vortex clone is Ro-Tor and voiced by Optimus actor Neil Kaplan. In Car Robots he's instead called Hepter, his voice provided by Masao Harada, who has done a couple of other incidental roles in this show (most significantly the dad of Koji's human friend)

Blast-Off's RiD Knockoff is Movor, voiced the late great Robert Axelrod. Axelrod's most famous voice was that of Lord Zedd in the Power Rangers original run, but he provided other voices for the show including put-upon monster-maker Finster. In Japan Movor is the equally unoriginally named Shuttler and is voiced by Beast Wars Neo's Sharp Edge: Hidenori Konda.

Fake Swindle is Rollbar, as voiced by Michael Lindsey (the voice of Skid-Z). His Car Robots incarnation is the oddly named Greejeeber and is voiced by WARS' actor Riki Kitazawa.

Finally we have Scourge, or Black Convoy in Japan. His English voice is the late Barry Stigler while his Japanese voice is Taitem Kusunoki. Stigler had a variety of low-key roles across numerous series while Kusunoki would go on from this point to become a prolific contributor to the Transformers frachise up to and including voicing the actual Optimus Prime in Japan's dubbing of Robots in Disguise.

...
...
...

By which I mean the 2015 one. Over in Japan it was called "Transformers Adventure"

He was also the movie voice of Jazz for his like... 3 lines that he got before being ripped in half. And the voice of Jack Burns in Bumblebee. Not that anyone would be able to see him....  


Phew, with that out of the way let's get on with the show.

-Megatron demands to know if Scourge, infused with the spark info of both Optimus and Megatron is Decepticon or Autobot. After a loooooooooooong dramatic pause he finally answers that he's a 'con through and through. Then he announces himself leader of the Decepticon sub-faction in a very cool, brash way by making Mega-Octane flinch.

-As the Decepticons begin to pelt the Autobots with a hail of laser fire Optimus transforms to his super mode so he can stand in front of the barrage and plead with Scourge to recognize that he's actually an Autobot and should stop this.

Pretty sure that's not going to work, Optimus.


Scourge is not the first "eeeevil black Optimus/Convoy" character in TF fiction (that honor goes to the Black Lio Convoy from Beast Wars II) but he's the first one that's a classic Convoy/Optimus truck design and is the one that informs most of the future versions of such characters. This heavier homage to classic Optimus is because the Scourge toy is actually a recolor of the 1995 Generation 2 release "Laser Optimus Prime", kept and released in all black/gray 5 years later to serve as Black Convoy.

Also of note is that while the RID Decepticons are given the old school Decepticon insignia on their toys, the Japanese Combatron toys have a unique symbol on them: An upside-down version of the G2 Autobot logo. This was for practical reasons as some of the base toy's accessories featured the G2 Autobot logo given their origin as a G2 Optimus Prime.

That idea of the upside-down Autobot symbol is cool because it evokes the image of upside down flags which are flown as symbols of protest, dislike, duress or other negative connotations regarding the flag's subject. shame it was lost in the translation (and not present at all here in the anime)


-Yep, it fails miserably and the Decepticons just keep attacking. Optimus stops the team with a blast of snowy air/water from his ladder, but before Scourge can counterattack Megatron tells the team to retreat because they're not at full power.

-The group disappears in the confusion while Optimus monologues about how sad he is that they're not Autobots.

-The poor other Predacons, however, have been left behind.

-And in all of this we finally go back to Kelly, who is sitting in the cap of the tanker tuck and seems to be totally broken as she bawls her head off about why all these terrible things keep happening to her.

On the surface it's a lighthearted show about an intergalactic robot war.
On a deeper level it's one woman's losing battle to keep the shattered remains of her psyche from slipping through her desperate fingers.​

-and that's the end of the episode. We fade out on Kelly's last shreds of sanity falling to tattered pieces.

Pros
+The stolen protoform plot is not new, but is always good

+Scourge is a great character as more than just "evil Optimus"

+The Decepticons are fun as homages/re-uses of the Combaticons and give the Preds more firepower than they've had before now

+Poor, poor, poor Kelly

+The Predacons (in totality, including the new recruits) seem like much more of a threat than they've been in the past



Cons
-The UFO plot seems like it's building up to something bigger than the reveal of the Autobot ship and sudden forgetting of all those other UFO sightings that could've just as easily maybe been Cybertronians. But no, after it finishes setting up the discovered ship it's never touched on again.

-The new sub-team using the Decepticon name as a unit within the Predacons is confusing as a long-time fan of the franchise.

-One could argue that the re-used Combaticons are a bit of a cheap ploy, especially if they don't get their legacy names.

 

Seeing how black Convoy and the Combatron scanning their Vehicles mode affected their size make me wonder why the Cybertrons aren’t downsized.

 

Hey sweet, we got to Scourge! He is neat.

 

FINALLY! The best characters have arrived!

Car Robots #14 as I watch:

• So Yuki's dad was just that nutjob from Ancient Aliens with the ridiculous hair.
• Of course the military-themed guys would be discovered in America!
• Accidental Destronger encounter!
• THERE'S CYBERTRONS IN THEM THERE HILLS!
• Gigatron's hand mode is putting in work!
• Remember when space shuttles used to be a thing? I wonder how they're going to modernize Blast Off/Shuttler going forward.
• The ball-bearings on Slapper!
• Finally, Gigatron gets some quality minions!
• How convenient that that stray beam hit that shuttle.
• THE STAR HAS ARRIVED! BLACK CONVOY!
• Welp! The Cybertrons have just taken a big fat L on this one.
• Gel Shark, Slapper, Goosher, and Gaskunk may have taken an L as well.

 

Well, next episode it'll be back to wacky hijinks (which I love).

 

It gets confusing in a bad way for me. I'm used to it being the Decepticon faction and Predacon sub-faction.

I'm glad. The Predacons have been outnumbered and outgunned. Time to up their threat index!

I think Scourge is one of the best black Prime redecos the franchise has had, and a cool character overall. Screw that stupid surfboard from G1!  

Another good Easter egg, here. Kudos, RID 2001!  

Considering some of the hobbies humans have... I honestly wouldn't put it past aliens to fly by here and prank us.

Continuity! Following up on something important from a previous episode!

She really is very rich, isn't she.

Okay, Captain Kirk.    

Creepimus Prime is stalking you. He knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you're awake...

Quite playing games with my spark, with my spa-ark! I should've known from the start!

WORSHIP GIANT HAND MODE! GIANT HAND MODE RULES ALL!

not sure which one I prefer. And I din't have a problem with multiple names for something, either.

Why not? Transformers does it all the time!  

One wonders if screwing with Kelly isn't something they intentionally do. Poor Kelly.

Very confusing. I get it mixed up almost every time this series comes up!

hey, if it works, it works.

Somewhere, G1 Starscream is furious that they could reformat their Combaticons the easy way.

He has a giant hand mode. Therefore he's right.

When the hell did she learn how to drive a friggin' truck like this? Kelly, what sort of life do you lead?

Which might be a step up for him, morally speaking.  

One of the best black repaints of them all!

i do love how he came this close to punching Mega-Octane like he did.

Time for the kids to buy new toys!

Well, they're still producing Soundwave toys that transform into micro-cassette recorders. So... still a shuttle?

Anyway, here's the RID 2001 Decepticons and Scourge!



Here's the Decepticons combined into Ruination. oh, spoilers for a 20-year old show!   Yeah, it's Bruticus. I believe this is a Walmart exclusive version, not sure. Anyway, what's cool is this isn't just a redeco. the weapons were remolded to be able to be combined into those giant weapons he's holding. Very cool. i always felt Bruticus was one of the better g1 combiners, and I'm glad i own this one.


Scourge is, of course, G2 Optimus Prime. I do love that the black redeco/counterpart to Optimus isn't a redeco of his current form, but another Prime. And they picked a great one. G2 Optimus, up until Masterpiece-01, is probably the best G1 Optimus Prime toy we had. And he still holds up today, IMHO.

 

specifically pertaining to this ep, which yes is a great one, i caution you to remember it and keep it in the back of your mind. this ep has quite a few details relevant later in the series.

i lagged off from ur posts for a while but back now to follow ur watch throughs  

i do really like this series as its a great bridge between the beast era and return to standard vehicle bots(beast baddies vs vehicle bots is fun). im bummed i never knew this series existed when it was on cause i could totally see myself getting into it. i kinda wish this series would get a proper revisit someday. can u not agree that this series has one of the most ridiculously ambitious and over the top but totally awesome megatron designs   As for fig from this series, i have scourge, the pred trio and last year got my hands on megatron(he is awesome). hope to at least get optimus and the autobot bros at some point.

fun fact(to me at least)-some yellow recolored versions of the RID optimus toys were retconed and canonized as a female version of RID optimus in an alternate timeline, which is just awesome. here's a link if u want to investigate for yourself Optimus Prime (Universe) - Transformers Wiki (tfwiki.net)

 

I think they were outnumber was because they are rogue and have no plan (unlike Megatron) plus Fire Convoy and his team are Dimensional Patrols taskforce as a counter measure if any rogue Predacons like Megatron forces tries to change the future.

 

That is really cool and like you note the symmetry is a cool thing we usually didn't see in combiners. He looks like he has good articulation too, which was always a fault of earlier combiners (though that was partially that bricks beget bricks)

I'm beginning to wonder if Dr. Onishi even is a scientist and not just some nutter conspiracy theorist who posts nonsense on the internet from out of his basement.

It is hard for me to keep my instincts in check and not get things backwards.

That was always an issue with the last few Japanese series. Once you start making a big part of the Predacon faction into comedy jobbers it becomes difficult to take any real threat from them seriously outside of maybe the leader of the day.

Hey, come on. You're going to make Headmasters Scourge cry. If he isn't already.

It could actually be an even deeper cut: the GoBot Path Finder

You love to see it.

You better watch out
You better watch out
You better watch out
You better watch out.

You know we'd all pay to see it because we're giant nerds.

Who wins in a fight between RiD Megatron's giant hand and Beast Machines Megatron's giant head?

Sideburn absolutely is. He's enough of a dick to do so.

Kelly should get a Dos Equis sponsorship. Because she is The Most Interesting Woman in the World.

But does that forgive the trend that he started?

That's not even the only one. Grimlock remains an 80s "upright" t-rex. Bumblebee is, as often as the license allows, a design of VW Beetle that hasn't been made in like 50 years. The Seekers largely remain in their 80s F-15 design.

And it's not like shuttles are totally dead yet. Plus even when they are discontinued they're still an iconic bit of aviation/space travel history.

There are soooooo many Bruticus/Ruinations  

I do like the combiner gimmick of using small bot weapons to make the massive combiner weapon. They should do it more often.

He's got kind of a fat head.

Good to know

No worries. And welcome back.

Megatron is certainly a trip and there's a lot of cleverness in being able to cram so many alt mode designs into him. It's actually kind of nice that he's not really a reimagining or homage to the earlier Megs forms too.

Yeah, I remember reading about that. It's a neat concept that could probably stand to be explored more. I know we already have Shattered glass, but just go full multiverse and do a story with all sorts of wacky and weird variants of characters from different microcontinuities and an assortment of theoretical other variant ideas.

 

Oh, and next episode out tomorrow. It's done, I'm just not sure I'll make it through the posting process tonight.

 

RID Megatron wins by poking Beast Machines Megatron in the eyes then punching him in the face while he can't see.