Better than Miller time, at least for me.   I don't mind filler, overall. Some of it can be bad, some good. I always thought Sailor Moon's filler made it superior to the original manga.

Might be a good idea. It's a little hard to pick out.

More continuity!

Do NOT mess with Alexis. She will end you like that.

Holy crap! What's going on, here?! Next thing you know there'll be actual plot progression even in this filler episode!

I so wanna see hot Shot watching that western! Come on, Armada!

At least in this case I can see his point.

I remember watching this scene when it first aired!  

"I'm looking for Sarah Conner."

Can confirm. the old Rochester Fair had a lot of food stalls compared to janky rides.

So rescue Bots stole borrowed without permission this plot point?  

Or even a digestive system! I think even if he had a mouth that'd be kinda useless.

If he thinks the Minicons are threatening, wait until he meets the Decepticons!

I can hear the sigh from her. And almost feel the boiling rage underneath.

it's a cool image. Although I think some Minicons are smaller than humans.

Well, kinda-sorta a sword.

Anyway, time for Red Alert, a character infinitely cooler than the G1 version, IMHO.



He's got a lot of gimmicks, light and sound act-chun! very articulated, too. He's got one of the Minicon teams hooked up to him. I can't remember which one. I can't keep track.   I like his missile launcher's missile is more a capture claw.

​

 

That's the Emergency Mini-Con Team. Specifically the same name redecos released near the end of the line.

 

Much appreciated.   I am so bad with names it's almost a parody.  

 

I'll come back to the other comments later before I post episode 8, but I just wanted to laugh now because I have the exact same Red Alert  . I got it for Christmas after I had started back into being interested in Transformers as a (sorta) adult. My mom bought it, not knowing anything about how the franchise had gone and not realizing that at the time I was mostly looking to collect G1 stuff I never had as a kid and wasn't plugged into the new anime series much at all. But I ended up liking it and got the few more over the next year or so.

I had just been holding off on posting mine because I wanted to see how far it was until we got to the color change within the show since it's part of a power-up gimmick or something that will eventually happen.

Aside from Overload, which I've already spoiled by mentioning, I have one more Armada figure left on my shelf. And it's probably the most obvious one to have.

 

In Micron Legends, the festival is specifically to celebrate the opening of the Cosmoscope laboratory. So the guy in the alien costume makes sense and its the guys in the animal costumes that are the odd-ones-out.

This is literally me every time I have to do a group project.

Sparkplug is sad because he doesn't get to go to the ball carnival.

LASERBEAK SEES ALL!

Char never betrayed anyone in his life!

Well they're not!

 

Episode 8 review will.have to wait for tomorrow at least. Having pc issues right now and I'm not likely to be able to fix them tonight.

 

Small update:

I think my hard drive in this laptop is on the fritz and it may require repair/replacement. If that's the case I might be without my primary computer for a few days.

I do have a backup one that I have used for rewatch stuff before (I think portions of Masterforce and Victory) so I know it should work without much issue as long as I can get it started again and set up with the new materials on it. If that's the case there should not be much interruption in posting in this thread. I've already watched this week's batch of episodes and I do want to continue trying to stay ahead of the curve, so hopefully I'm in a place where you won't notice much change in anything that happens. If something does go sideways I may choose to pause things here just so I don't start falling behind but we'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

I also just received my copy of the PS2 Transformers game that I got off ebay. I haven't popped it into my ps2 to make sure it works yet but provided it does I'll also spend the next few weeks figuring out if I can get a PS2 emulator working so I can try playing the game on my computer and get screenshots and whatnot. because that would be more fun than just text write-ups of me playing or having to actually take photos of my TV screen for accompanying images. Thankfully we're not even 1/4 of the way through the series at this point so I have lots of time to get that worked out.

 

I also totally missed a milestone earlier in the series:

Episode 2 (Metamorphosis) was the 400th episode/piece of content that we've watched in this series of threads. That's kind of a staggering number when it's put into perspective. Man we've wasted a lot of time bantering about cartoon robots  

 

That royally sucks and I hope you can either get it fixed or repaired with little problem.

no, no. We haven't 'wasted' time bantering. We've been arguing. See the difference?  

 

EPISODE 8: PALACE (神殿 (たから) - "Takara" - Treasure Shrine)
Soon to be remade as a far inferior version starring Tom Cruise.

Spoiler

This is kind of the "yeah, but..." episode

The gang heading to the desert is cool and interesting, but it ultimately ends up with half the cast taking part in a much less important B-plot while the main plot goes on.

That split does create two unique storylines, but as I said one was more interesting than the other, and we spend a lot of time whipping between the two fronts and not really dedicating much time to letting either thread develop a solid groove.

The fights are decent, but ultimately without much meaning.

And exploring the cool deserted temple is fun, but it comes with strange techno-magic traps that make little sense and don't get much explanation.

Starscream and Megatron's endgame scenes are super fun, but we have to go through a whole lot of dopey Carlos being dopey to get there.

Ultimately I liked a fair amount about this episode but I also couldn't help but feel like it was a little bit of a let down because every fun aspect came with a noteworthy drawback.

Spoiler

It's time for "what's that title mean?" everyone's favorite mini language lesson. (yes, there will be a header soon. Maybe if I have photoshop on the backup computer. I can't remember if I put it on there or not.)

Our given kanji for today, 神殿, normally are pronounced "shinden" and mean 'temple' or 'sacred place'. The given reading from the furigana, "takara" (heh, interesting choice, that.) would normally be one of a number of possible characters, but most likely 宝, which means 'treasure' (incidentally, several of the other kanji that could be used would also mean something like treasure or goods.). Karyuudo married those aspects of the title into its chosen translated title of "treasure shrine"

-Today on Transformers Armada: black and white movies about middle eastern deserts!

*insert the soundtrack of Aladdin here*​

-I will give them credit, the flashback/narrated legend/whatever it is has some nice film scratch and grain effects on it and the colors are ever so slightly there through the desaturation.

Or this is a noir story and this is the Maltese Falcon​

-What is odd is that Rad is narrating this legend specifically about a woman, but the figure on the camel is at best rather androgynous and at worst appears to skew slightly towards possibly being a man.

-The race is now on to find "the desert minicon" apparently.

-Cut to Decepticons combing the desert as Demolishor takes some potshots at Cyclonus

And he just stands there and takes it.​

-At least now it kind of makes Cyclonus' Japanese name of Sandstorm a bit more apropos.

-Meanwhile at Autobot HQ we get a brief shot of the Minicon alarm and right into the suit-up footage of the kids. Now narrated by Carlos!

-So far there have been a lot of instances of Armada inserting dialogue and narration into scenes that have no speaking in Micorn Legend. It really is like some bizzaro world version of Beast Wars.

-And after the title card we find that Hot Shot's sports car mode isn't very suited to desert driving.

-Carlos tells him he was warned about this and when Hot Shot sasses him for it, Optimus reminds the young Autobot that the kids are native Earthicans and thus understand the planet and its terrain better than them.

-Optimus' head fin things are looking quite wingy today.

Optimus is feeling extra aerodynamic today​

-And that's when Red Alert and Alexis both chuckle at Hot Rod's impetuousness.

-but too bad for them they're being watched by Demolishor. And they nearly get shot if not for Optimus being on the ball.

-This segues into a pretty tense scene of the Autobots taking cover in the dunes, like they're trying to evade an enemy sniper.

-Hot Shot blows off Optimus' warning and calls for his minicon partner... Grindor?

-This almost gets him shot if not for Optimus saving him again. Idiot.

-Meanwhile the kids have just wandered off to circle around on Demolishor, which leads to Carlos rushing recklessly into action. Only they don't even need to do anything as the desert swallows up the Decepticon.

-And almost gets Carlos too. *monotone* oh no. The horror. not Carlos....

-As Demolishor continues to get sucked below the sand, there are bursts/explosions that catch Alexis' attention, as if there's something moving underneath the ground. Is this actually Dune and we're about to see them get eaten by a sand worm?

The Minicons must flow​

-And just now Red Alert notices the kids are missing. Great guardianship you guys have going here.

-Of course Hot Shot just rushes off into danger again, so what else should I expect?

-Hot Shot does find Laserbeak though, released by Rad moments before he became the last of the trio to sink below the sands.

-Strangely while Hot Shot finds Laserbeak, and Laserbeak is implied to at least be capable of basic command obedience, he does nothing and in no way informs the Autobots of what happened to the kids.

-But we don't get to see any more of that because now it's time to see that the kids, Minicons, and presumably Demolishor too have all been sucked into an underground set of ruins.

-Back above ground now the Autobots are being accosted by Cyclonus and the late arriving Starscream and Megatron. This day just keeps getting better.

-And as Armada Hot Shot thinks about how they shouldn't have too much trouble taking care of the Decepticons, Micron Legend Hot Rod wants the kids to be safe, referring to them as Convoy did earlier, as senpais (well, Karyuudo spells it with an 'm', but the point stands and now all I can think of is the "notice me, senpai!" meme.)

-Back from commercial break, we've gotta pad for time with another flashback sequence about the legend of the minicon panel narrated by Rad (though "narrated" is a stretch since little of hwat he says actually equates to the story, which appears to show that the palace ruins they are in are where the panel ended up in the story.

-Rad and Carlos have a weird conversation about mole people, but it's OK because Alexis is there to take charge and bust their chops for it.

She's easily the most fun of the trio.  

-They stop when they spot a design carved into some wall/ceiling detailing with a very familiar symbol in the middle.

Minicons wouldn't be the silliest things people have made a cult around.​

-Gotta zoom in hard on the Minicon symbol just so they can be sure you notice it.

-Alexis gives us some info and theorizing on the presence of the symbol which prompts Carlos to make a Harrison Ford joke. And not just a vague reference to Indiana Jones. He actually name-checks Ford himself. Actual, by-name pop culture jokes in a Transformers series feel weird to me. Off-color no-celebrities-were-harmed jokes like G1's "Harold Edsel" sure. But direct real life references? Weird.

-Back above the sand, Optimus and Megatron are engaged in another grapple. What's that, 4 or 5 grappling scenes in 8 episodes?

-And we were only up there for a few brief seconds before we dip back down below to the kids again.

-But we're here because suddenly they're being watched by a bunch of glowing neon tube-sign-looking eyes. Freaky

and the eyes belong to.. ancient Egyptian robots?

The pharaohs were routinely buried with their robots so they could continue to guard them in the afterlife.​

-The robot spider things close in on the kids, only for them to be saved by Demolishor of all bots. So they then do the noble thing and abandon him to deal with them.

-And we abandon that plotline to head back up and check on Optimus and Megatron's fight. Now with background theme music!

-And a faceoff between Ratchet and Red Alert. For a few seconds. Because it's back underground so that Rad can narrate the fact that they've found the minicon panel in some kind of pyramid forcefield thing.

I don't care what this shows, pyramid power is still hokum​

-And none of this narration exists in the Japanese version. The scene is entirely silent instead.

-Carlos steps into the room and triggers a booby trap.

Look at that, it actually catches real boobies.  

-And then he stands there, staring at the panel, oblivious to the giant piece of rock that's about to crush him. Or that him rushing in ot retrieve the panel leads him onto a collapsing floor. It's like he's trying to get himself killed.

-And then some of the statues in the room have their faces morph so they can shoot lasers at Demolishor. And it sounds even weirder now that I type it out.

-All these crazy defences appear to be keeping everyone from getting to the panel, but we do get Demolishor leaping for it and in the process get our first detailed pastel-frame (which actually looks more sketchy and hand-drawn with colored pencils or felt pens instead)

Seems a random choice for a scene to get this treatment.​

-Right before he manages to grab the panel and get sucked into the pit of sand. Which he then easily climbs out of in spite of how much trouble he had navigating it earlier. Because sure why not.

-Demolishor proudly presents the panel to Megatron, then activates it, calling it "Bomb" in Japanese. He also crushes the panel to activate it. Is that a thing?

-And so Hot Shot, like an idiot, just charges right at Demolishor in spite of Optimus' orders. I hope he gets shot in the chest.

-Instead he leaps over the 'con and throws himself into the sand pit to find the kids. I guess that's noble enough, even if he looks like an over-eager nut.

-So the Decpeticons retreat, Red Alert rushes to see if he can find sign of Hot Shot and the kids, and when the yellow bot emerges from the sand everyone smiles.

-Some minor dialogue difference as Rad narrates a conclusion of the Autobot plot. In English he praises the Autobots for always protecting them even though they lost the Minicon. In Japanese he simply laments that the day was lost because the Decepticons got away with the prize.

-Meanwhile Megatron demands Demolishor hand over the Minicon in spite of his protestations about giving up what he found himself. And the episode ends on Demolishor trying to argue his way out of the predicament while Starscream smirks.

Pros
+The desert adventure is interesting

+The fights aren't terrible

+Splitting the parties works out well

+the Decepticon ending with Megatron being a greedy jerk and Starscream smugly watching it happen to someone else is a nice setup for future events.



Cons
-There's a bit too much flitting between plots in the middle, especially when the topside battle is so unimportant

-The weird magic temple and its traps is kind of ridiculous.

-Carlos is an idiot.

 

I would've gone with Lawrence of Arabia, but that works too.  

yeah. I like it when the animators go the extra mile to make things look like that. They didn't have to, but they did and deserve kudos for it.  

Well, good of Rad not to hog the spotlight.  

Okay...

1. Again, kudos for a fairly realistic thing with a sports car not handling the desert.
2. I'm actually reminded of an episode of Knight Rider where KITT, out in the American Southwest, couldn't get up sand dunes because like Hot Shot, he was a sports car.

I love knight Rider, got the series on DVD and still watch it. Anyway...

Okay, that? That is the kind of human/Transformer interaction I like, where we're guides to this strange, alien world for the Autobots.

I'm glad Prime is on the ball so much, here.

I would've expected that out of Hot Shot, not Red Alert!

What did Will Riker say once? "Sometimes you get the bear, and sometimes the bear gets you."

Micron Legend wins, there. Nice to see the thoughtful, caring side.

I'd make a Yugioh joke if I had any experience with the franchise...  

Nice Prime Target reference.  

I'll give him points for thinking about the kids and trying to save them. Good on you, Hot Shot.

 

I will come back for the rest of the posts I haven't responded to, but for now:

My favorite bit of Spaceballs trivia (possibly tied with the fact that most of the in-universe Spaceballs merch is just Transformers merch with Spaceballs logo stickers plastered onto them) is that the "we ain't found shit!" spaceball is Tim "Tuvok" Russ.  

 

The two most noteworthy things I have noticed about this show so far:
1) Carlos is a moron.
2) Demolishor/Ironhide's life sucks.

 

Those first 13 episodes of Armada are the hardest to get through. I love the show to death, but they are a bit of a slog.

Makes me wish someone would make a fan recut that trims that first quarter down (among other things like fixing the dialogue where possible).

 

Ooh this episode always kind of stood out to me. Sure it's over the top and pretty weird but I still remember watching it on TV as a kid.

This episode is really well drawn compared to all the others so far (maybe except episode 1). I think they had 3 directors who also animated, I guess this is one of the better ones.

Ah yes, Red Alert's infamous line: "we forgot the kids!"

This is so bizarre and it feels really forced. Almost like someone on the translation team thought this was just the funniest thing and had to make damn sure it was included. Even Rad wasn't having it!

Certainly won't be the last either. I guess they forget their guns/ammo a lot. Or Megatron called another truce like in Beast Wars  

I really believe Carlos is the defining factor that ruins this show for people.

I thought this was unfinished, or they didn't want to animate it so they threw some concept art in there. I guess it was a stylistic approach, it's cool but it's just strange. Then again this whole show just gets weirder and weirder.

Someone actually did just that! QueenBell Studios on YouTube has done a really incredible job cutting the episodes, editing mistakes, and even adding some nice touches. It's not fully finished but I'd say they got about the first half of the show done.

 

Watch period: Tuesday, November 30 through Monday, December 6 @ 11:59:59pm Pacific.

EPISODES (titles are formatted as "Armada title" / "Micron Legend title". The M-L titles are based on Karyuudo's translated titles)
9) Confrontation / Trapped in a Deserted Building
10) Underground / Underground Maze
11) Ruin / Memories of a Metropolis
12) Prehistory / History of Motives

A little late on putting this up because of computer stuff. I hopefully might have episode 9 up tonight or, failing that, tomorrow as long as I can get my backup computer set up and working tonight.

The YTs for this weeks episodes are below:

Spoiler

Also plan on doing post responses later, again computer setup permitting

 

EPISODE 9: CONFRONTATION (廃墟 (わな) - "Wana" - TRAPPED IN A DESERTED BUILDING)
Child endangerment and dumb plans.

Spoiler

Much like Cyclonus' plan itself, this episode has an interesting concept and starts off well only to fall apart over the course of its run until it ends in disappointment considering where we started.

The plan itself to kidnap kids and hold them hostage to force the Autobots' hand is the standout aspect of the episode and generates most of its positive aspects. But from there everything systematically picks away at the potential until we're left with a bit of a downbeat result.

First up, the animation seems to suffer from the get-go as a lot of the action lacks the fluidity and detail necessary to sell it, especially when there's not a lot else going on.

But perhaps the bigger issue is Hot Shot. His brash, aggressive, Chromedome-y nature is on full display as he acts like a complete jackass and even gets the upper hand on Megatron briefly on the way to not facing any consequences for his dickery and jerkishness, seemingly because of the usual anime transformers trope of excusing that sort of behavior because the character means well in their single-minded pursuit of "justice" and that makes them no longer responsible for whatever nonsense they get up to in the process. It was annoying when Chromedome did it, when Ginrai did it, and when Lio Junior did it. So it's no better now with Hot Shot even though I actually like Hot Shot a fair bit more than any of those others.

I really wanted to like this one based on where it started. It's just a shame where it ended up.

Spoiler

-Standard kanji explanation/exploration note:

The title's given kanji, 廃墟, are normally pronounced "haikyo" and mean ruins. The furigana-indicated pronunciation of "wana" is usually used for either 罠, and means something more like trap or snare. Thus we get the Karyuudo translated title of "trapped in a deserted building".

I haven't had a chance to make a header for these factoid bits yet. Maybe this week.

-I haven't kept up much with production and airing info from the series so far, but just to return to that (even if only briefly)

As was standard for Armada given how it was rushed for western airing to comply with the demands of the Cartoon Network, it aired first in English on October 25, 2002, about 6 months before Micron Legend would debut it on TV on March 7, 2003.

If it matters or is of any real importance or interest to anyone, yes I expect some time over the next 3 weeks or so we should reach the point that episodes are watched/reviewed on roughly the 19th anniversary of their original Armada airing.

The writer for this episode in Japan is Shoji Tonoike, who has 13 Micron Legend scripts to his credit as well as 17 episodes of SuperLink/Energon. The Wiki doesn't have Armada writing credits likely because around this time it seems like standard practice was for writers on anime dubs to not be credited for their work (the other UT series have similar issues, it would appear).

Now on with the show!


-We open on the area around the kids' school and the science labs/etc. Something I hadn't considered before now is that we're apparently in Nebraska and yet there are palm trees everywhere.

Everyone knows that Nebraska is the tropical midwest state​

Also Nebraska does not appear to be nearly as mountainous as it's depicted here. Sure, a quick google search shows peaks, bluffs, buttes, and the like, but not a big, towering, imposing mountain range to nestle a science lab and satellite community in.

Honestly it feels like this would've made way more sense if they set the show in Hawaii which does allow for this sort of vegetation and topography. It also would make sense if we figure that Japan's primary exposure to American geography that isn't massive sprawling cities (like New York) is west coast things like California and, yes, Hawaii. It also makes me wonder if the intent was to put the series on the islands, but possibly Hasbro balked at the idea figuring that for as much as another country like Japan might view Hawaii as quintessentially American, mainland American kids might take exactly the opposite approach since it (and to a lesser extent Alaska) are so fundamentally different from what you might consider the "normal" experience of kids anywhere else in the country.

I have no idea. By the end of that paragraph I'm mostly speculating based on absolutely nothing except the look of the background as decided on by the Japanese animators. And given how we've already seen in previous shows that they aren't always the best at accurately representing areas outside of Japan (a failing that is in no way specific to Japan themselves, of course) maybe it's just that they had no idea what Nebraska is supposed to look like and the rushed schedule led to whatever QC staff was watching from the Hasbro side going "ehh, close enough."

-Anyway, back at the plot we open on Billy and Fred sitting under one of those massive antennas (geez, I hope those aren't like high tension power lines putting out enough EM radiation to maybe allegedly possibly give you cancer) debating where the robots they saw a couple episodes ago have come from.

Fred thinks "the future" and that they aren't necessarily evil
Billy thinks "space" and that they're all here to conquer the planet.

Well, guys, you can smash those concepts together to create one halfway accurate overall theory!

-As they sit and ruminate, the other 3 kids head across a nearby bridge and the bullies get up to give chase, presumably to find out what they know about the robots. Because none of Carlos, Rad, or Alexis seem to think that suddenly having a moped, self-propelled skateboard, or apparently self-propelled bicycle is weird enough to draw attention to themselves.

-Also nobody is riding with helmets. Safety first, kids.

-When they see the bullies catching up they increase speed and take off, only to find themselves in a forest (in a mountainous region) with Cyclonus above them for some reason.

-Everyone splits up and suddenly Rad is animated as if he's pedaling his bike even though it's clearly making a motor noise (which... may not even be necessary? You'd think that Highwire would have a power source that doesn't make combustion engine sounds unless it's designed to as part of his disguise.)

-Cyclonus hovering over Rad and taunting him exposes us to the unfortunate design flaw of his robot mode hands just hanging off the his chopper body, balled up like fists.

Robots in Disguise!​

-And so Rad tries to outrun Cyclonus. On his powered bicycle. Genius!

-Also he gets shot at while Cyclonus stupidly decides to not transform, making it harder for him to find his quarry.

-It also turns out that he has Laserbeak in his pocket, and in his non-bird mode he has a sort of taser mode. On the one hand it's not as bad as the Headmasters trusting Daniel with a potentially lethal laser pistol, but on the other hand, do we know if we can trust these pre-teens with a dangerous weapon? Alexis, maybe, but the other two?

-Rad manages to give Cyclonus the slip, but the Decepticon ends up finding Billy and Fred instead and kidnaps them.

-Which he does by not transforming and instead simply extending his already-visible arms from the side of his helicopter body and picking them up.

-But at least Cyclonus does a good job of planning on exchanging the two kids for the minicons the Autobots have found.

-Rad dispatches Laserbeak to track Cyclonus and then the gang reports what happened to Optimus.

-Prime immediately declares that only Cyclonus would do something so devious. I kinda doubt that, Optimus. Seems like it'd be right up most Decepticons' alleys.

-Hot Shot also takes it particularly hard. Likely because he's this series' hot-blooded young warrior spoiling for a fight full of burning justice and righteous fury. He calls this "too far" in English" and "absolutely unforgivable" in Japanese. As bad as it is, I have a hard time believing that they haven't done something significantly worse at some other point in their history.

-With the Decpeticons' coordinates confirmed, the whole team heads off in some nice, cheap warp tunnel stock footage.

-Which leads them to a deserted town. One that looks very old west, with wooden buildings and hanging wooden signs for an inn and a literal tumbleweed. Though there's also some slightly Japanese looking design to the buildings themselves.

Thank goodness the Decepticons set up shop in the abandoned warehouse district where nobody will get hurt during a fight​

-Inside one of the rotting buildings Fred whinges about being captured while Billy insults him for it and insists the Decepticons are going to "drain their brains" as part of their evil plot to take over the world.

-Though in Japanese Jim-Fred has an attack of conscience/compassion and asks about what the robots' plan means for Rad and the others. To which Billy responds that it's obvious they're being manipulated.

I've bagged on the Japanese script a bit so far in this series, but that's an interesting thread that could be explored. Though I get the sense it probably won't be even in Micron Legend, as we're going to get the Autobots rescuing them here and that will put an immediate end to Billy's suspicions.

-They poke around the building they're in when suddenly a GIGANTIC bolt falls from the ceiling and almost crushes them. Seriously, where would that even come from? It almost looks like it was a perspective issue as the initial shot of it being dislodged from up high make it look like a standard, human-sized bolt. Only when it lands Billy has to jump out of the way and it makes a tremendous noise and is now almost as tall as him.

Maybe they made or stored those gigantic dump trucks you see working in massive quarries?​

-And up in the rafters they see Leader-1.

-Back outside the 3 non-Megatron Decepticons wait around in silence for the Autobots to show up.

-Rad suggests everyone split up to find Billy and Fred. And so once again instead of pairing a human with a Cybertronian for safety, the 3 Autobots head off together and leave the 3 kids with their Minicons to go off on their own. What could possibly go wrong!

-Fred tries to offer Leader-1 a potato chip.

First off, that chip looks unpalatbly thick. Like you'd probably break some teeth trying to crunch through it.

And second, Leader-1 has a mouthplate. How's he going to eat it, even if he wanted to eat it to begin with?

-But we gotta do it for our ET moment. all that's missing is branded chips to get the Reese's Pieces boost.

-Outside Optimus tells the Decepticons he needs proof of life and Hot Shot mouths off and aggravates the Decepticons, risking their safety.

-Meanwhile inside the building Billy tries to tackle Leader-1, Fred joins in for some reason, and then the Minicon fires a big purple laser beam out of the roof. Good job kids, you almost got yourselves killed.

-Then Leader-1 gets up, his chest starts glowing gold for some reason, then stops as he turns away. What?

-And outside we get a pretty badly animated fight. It's not awful but it does seem very limited.

-limited including Starscream producing his sword seemingly out of nowhere.

-And Optimus awkwardly fighting Demolishor which includes his leg wobbling for some reason before he delivers a clumsy side kick.

-And then back in the building the Street Team Minicons (Highwire, Grindor, and Sureshock) show up on a rafter to save Billy and Fred, but not before they have a conversation with Leader-1.

-Outside Hot Shot tries a rather clumsy maneuver to catch Cyclonus with the trap jaw/pincer things on the front of his car, which he can seemingly only activate while linked with Jolt. It's kind of a silly and disappointing "power".

It's likely only the 3rd or 4th most cool thing my toy can do, but you should still buy it!​

-And back inside Rad asks what the Minicons are talking about, but are interrupted by the emergence of Megatron from under the floor.

What?

-And then he somehow produces purple lightning to electrocute everyone.

Twist: Megatron is secretly a Sith Lord​

Double What?

-And it jams them all into a ball which he can then levitate.

He's also a fan of dodgeball​

Triple What?

-At least Megatron gloats properly. That's always fun when it's David Kaye.

-That's when Megatron bursts out of the side of the building with a mighty fist!

Megatron cares not for property values​

-In Micron Legend this is the part that Hot Rod goes full Chromedome, as he can't stands no more, transforms, screams "You Scumbag! I'M PISSED OFF!" and slugs Cyclonus, knocking him out. All while Megatron continues to threaten to crush the kids. Good job, Hot Rod. You could've easily gotten them all killed becuase you needed to show how much burning justice you have welling up inside you.

-But Optimus realizes that he can't let this happen and agrees to Megatron's terms to hand over the Minicons. Because he's actually a hero.

-The kids object. Armada plays this like them being concerned about how strong it'll make the Decepticons while Optimus says he won't allow them to be harmed, making him look noble and principled. Micron Legend plays it up like the kids will "figure out a way out of this" and Optimus respecting their willingness to sacrifice themselves while also choosing not to allow it. Because they have the will of the warrior and all that other stuff that most Japanese Transformers theme songs love to go on about.

-Hot Shot isn't having any of this though. Screw those kids! He wants his super-mode!

-But right as the exchange is about to be made, Megatron *gasp* lies!

HOW UNEXPECTED!

-Only suddenly he gets tased by Rad. It doesn't do much, but Leader-1 tries to stop him, only for Rad to drop Laserbeak and it somehow tases Megs even harder.

So Megatron is literally being beaten by small children.

-He drops everyone except Rad, and manages to recover enough to threaten to crush the boy if the Autobots don't stop fighting back.

*monotone* no, don't do it. Stop, Megatron. Autobots, you have to stop and not let him hurt Rad. no.​

-Megatron extorts the rest of the Minicons out of the Autobots, only for Fred to find Laserbeak and start zapping Megatron in the foot in a shocking bout of bravery.

I'm sure he was thinking about cheeseburgers or something.​

Too bad it doesn't seem to be doing anything.

-Leader-1 closes in and looms over Fred before suddenly stopping. It's hard to really tell what's happening because the visor/mouthplate setup makes it so he has no movable face components to emote through.

-And this is when Hot Shot uses the distraction to karate kick Megatron in the arm so he'll release Rad. Good thing this works or Megs would've been able to just crush Rad before swatting Hot Shot down. And it still makes him look like a reckless jerk who's willing to endanger the others for his glory and sense of justice.

What a hero​

-He also manages to slug Megs in the face hard enough to knock him down. All that was missing was the burning justice aura.

-With the tide turned and the battle seemingly lost, the Decepticons retreat as Megatron places all the failures on the shoulders of Cyclonus.

-Rad's OK, Hot Shot gets all kind of credit, and now everyone's nice to Billy and Fred and they're suddenly getting along. Also they have to introduce the two to the Autobots and Billy rather easily gives up his "world conquest" expectations.

So now there's 5 kids hanging around the Autobots while Rad says everything's alright now as long as the Decepticons aren't around. Yeah. Like that's going to happen.

Pros
+Cyclonus' plan is actually good

+It's kind of, sort of tense for a bit



Cons
-The animation and action take a step back in quality

-Hot Shot is a dick

-Everything is forgiven and everyone is friends far too easily at the end of the episode.

-Hot Shot almost sort of beats Megatron briefly, kind of.

-All the promise of the plan unravels and ends in a kind of disappointing way.

 

Honestly it's like 50/50 whether the remaster scenes look any better

True about the animation quality. If there's a saving grace it's that even when it takes a nosedive it's not like we're getting AKOM-bad level shoddy work. It's more that it's just kind of lazy and disappointing.

I do get the sense now that things that happen are building to a bigger payoff down the road. It just needs to start getting in gear soon.

 

The fact that the bigger Cybertrons rely on the Minicons so much but can't understand them and don't seem to care too much about trying to understand them is such a weird choice.

The disparity in quality and effort in 90s Mainframe shows vs 2000s UT animation is probably going to be a bigger focus of mine in the next couple shows when we switch to CG Transformers inserted into the otherwise ink-and-paint style animation.

"Oh no! The Decepticons have blotted out the sun!"

I don't like all the legacy name choices (like Swindle) but I do appreciate that if they're going to phone it in creatively at least they're phoning it in with some fanservice.

Also I disagree about them not needing names. I think that, handled maybe a tiny bit better, the whole concept of the Minicons as a Cybertronian underclass with tremendous power who are mistreated and dismissed as valuable beings to some degree by both sides is a storytelling goldmine. But it seems like that potential was brought up and then mostly cast aside because the Autobots get a pass since they're at least trying to be noble while with the Decepticons there's little argument that they aren't evil, but the nature of the Minicons being bonded to them is of little consequence except that we know it's not good.

Micromastesr, on the other hand, I don't think ever got much of a satisfactory explanation.

While I watched Captain Planet a bunch as a kid, I don't have a strong recollection of that. I think the weirdest random cartoon theme that remains stuck in my head is Denver, the Last Dinosaur which was part of that late 80s Dinosaur boom with stuff like The Land Before Time, Dinosaucers, Cadillacs & Dinosaurs, Dino-Riders (which I still contend was awesome and deserves a reboot. Its toys were also fantastic), and more.

 

We've got everything you want, we know the names.

There actually seems to be a bit of a divide between minicon powers and anime super powers. The minicons usually create sensible tech improvements or releases. Red Alert releases his gun, Hot Shot gets his big cannon from his car axle, Starscream gets giant shoulder rifles, Megatron's groin gun grows in size (heh), and Optimus unlocks the full power of his super mode. Meanwhile characters manifesting random super powers out of a sense of burning justice are almost all the ones that come with no explanation except for stock anime heroic willpower junk.

Yeah. The hand you see is his forward one clutching the barrel.

Probably would've been more shocking than Cliffjumper since the last 15-20 years have seen the "shocking, sudden character death early in a show to demonstrate nobody is safe" trope hadn't really taken hold yet. I know obviously there are more examples likely dating back for decades, but the two examples of "anyone can die" that always stick out for me are:

1) Eric Balfour's character whose name I don't remember dying in the pilot episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That one ended up kind of sucking because he turned into a vampire and then they forgot he ever existed after the pilot.

and

2) a character in the British spy drama Spooks (aka MI-6 in North America because of the unfortunate potential racial implications of the British title) dies like 2 episodes into the series in exceedingly gruesome fashion (I won't go into grisly detail but let's just say it involved a restaurant deep fryer) for total shock value and to reinforce that this is a dangerous line of work that could get anyone killed on any given mission

And they could've always salvaged the toy by replacing Starscream with another Seeker later in the show that would've just necessitated a repaint figure to be released.

By the time Prime came out, I think people were savvy enough about shock-value character deaths to see all the flags in place (heavily promoted character, super expensive actor, suspiciously aggressive denials about anything going on around said character, etc)

Technically G1 had stock footage because it would reuse transformations across multiple scenes, just swapping out the background.

Animated though seems like its stock footage was an intentional homage to the prominence of anime design and tropes by that point. IIRC they also tended to use anime reactions at tomes too (like the giant sweat drop or the little red cross vein symbol or whatever)

I'm not sure if this is where you're going, but this reminds me of an episode of the 2000s Justice League cartoon where The Question was being tortured for information about the league and he was giving out weird random conspiracy theories/facts including "those little plastic things on the ends of shoelaces are called 'aglets'. Their true purpose is... sinister."

It actually seems like there's at least 2 or 3 gun emplacements.

You could almost write these Chromedome/Ginrai/Lio Junior/Hot Shot(Rod) characters as Decepticons with shockingly little alteration

I'm not sure the current crop of Decpeticons has a strong candidate to head up this sort of operation. Megatron wouldn't care, Starscream would think it beneath him, Demolishor wouldn't have the patience and Cyclonus would be too stupid.

Of course it does. If nothing else the show has been extremely toy accurate. Though I almost expected that it would be Minicon activated.

It wasn't until I went to eBay to see how much Armada figures cost that I realized Laserbeak wasn't a minicon sized bot but was actually a full sized "roleplay" toy that is big enough to be scaled to a real life human kid. That's kind of fun.

That would mean he'd have to share the profits.

I really appreciate the creativity in using a lot of the powerlinx gimmicks. Though not all are great. It sucks that Super Mode Optimus doesn't have something that deploys or flips out based on a Minicon linking with him. Except for the fact that it would drive kids nuts if they lost Sparkplug, I wonder how cool it would've been if you needed a minicon to activate Super Mode at all.