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Cartoon Viewing Club: Zob's Thoughts on "S.O.S. Dinobots"
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Zobovor
Mar 14, 2018, 10:28:51 PM3/14/18
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"S.O.S. Dinobots" was episode eight of the original Transformers series, and first aired on October 27, 1984. It was written by Donald F. Glut, dinosaur enthusiast who would go on to pen most of the episodes featuring the Dinobots. The episode found its way into heavy rotation during the first season, and was widely available on VHS home video.
The Dinobots were some of the most exciting toys to come out of the Transformers toy line. Sure, robots who turned into cars and planes were great, but robot who turned into dinosaurs were totally awesome. Originally part of the Diaclone toy line, Hasbro could have theoretically launched the toy line, and cartoon, including them from the very start. Instead, they wisely waited, introducing more basic toys first and then working in the Dinobots and Insecticons and Constructicons into later episodes and toy assortments.
The episode begins at Autobot Headquarters, with our heroes detecting some tremors coming from somewhere within the volcano. While Ironhide is quick to blame Rumble and his quake-creating powers, Spike observes that it seems to be emanating from within the cavern walls of their volcano base. Ironhide confirms the presence of something unusual with his sonidar sensor (this accessory was included with the recent Masterpiece Ironhide toy). We as the viewing audience can identify it as the fossilized skull of a triceratops, but the Autobots simply have no clue what they've discovered. A excavation expedition is thus called for. Our Autobot archeologists include Optimus Prime, Ironhide, Sideswipe, Brawn, Wheeljack, and Spike.
"Feels like stone," Wheeljack observes before he even picks up a dinosaur bone. Also, for some reason, Wheeljack's phototronic information gatherers are flashing an unusual orange color when he speaks instead of the standard blue color. Even more unusual than this, though, is that all these dinosaur fossils are just sitting out in the open. If the dinosaurs had died in the cavern millions of years ago, their bones would have crumbled to dust. Fossilization occurs when the organic bone tissue is replaced with mineral deposits, which can only happen when the bones are buried. Maybe Ironhide really was right all along, and it was some kind of a Decepticon plot.
Spike explains what the fossils are. Sometimes I think he's only in these episodes to help move the plot along. Every young boy is fascinated with dinosaurs, so it's forgivable in this instance that Spike would possess this specific knowledge. Jazz has suddenly appeared as part of the Autobot group. The animators were so bad at keeping track of specific mission participants. Wheeljack's scientific curiosity about dinosaurs is piqued, and even Optimus Prime wants to know more about them. He draws his hand to his chin in comntemplation in this grand, sweeping gesture. There is no way he needed to swing his arm that wide just to reach his face.
At a hydroelectric plant called the Great Falls, Soundwave and Reflector are in their Earth modes conducting a reconnaissance mission. One of the humans (Gregg Berger, doing his Orson the Pig voice) offers a convenient explanation about how the waterfall is harnessed to create electrical power. If this were a season two episode, the Decepticons would just have installed a rock with a built-in camera somewhere, but this is early before their foothold on the planet was clearly established, so they have to go out into the world in person. They return to their undersea base to report to Megatron.
Elsewhere, Spike is taking the Autobots to the museum. It looks a little like the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, IL, which in 1984 would have included one of the most extensive dinosaur exhibits in the world. SPike and Hound pass by a punk rocker in a mohawk. "Now that's what I call heavy metal!" the punk observes. It was more of a topical reference than it is today, but it's still cute.
Hound is able to shoot the exhibits with his hologram gun and extrapolate what they would look like as living creatures (don't worry, the holograms don't hurt the fossils... also, they're just plaster replicas). "Very impressive," Optimus Prime says dryly before the holograms are even generated. There are some serious timing issues in this episode already. Also, apparently Hound's holograms go so far as to create squealing and growling sounds for the dinosaurs, as well as changing the entire background of the museum into a prehistoric valley.
The gears in Wheeljack's mad scientist brain start turning, and he starts talking about how great it would be to have dinosaurs working for the Autobots. He's probably already thinking about extracting DNA samples from fossilized amber and creating some organic clones in his lab. Ratchet suggests the somewhat more pedestrian approach of constructing robotic equivalents instead. Optimus Prime seems to think that this is an excellent idea. He won't give Grapple permission to build an energy-collecting tower, but he'll give Wheeljack and Ratchet the go-ahead to build some gigantic lumbering prehistoric beasts. I don't see any aspect of this going wrong at all. "It'll never work... big waste of time," predicts Huffer. Somebody give that guy an award.
The Autobots use the cavern where the priceless dinosaur fossils have been discovered and turn it into a construction site. No phone calls to human archeaologists to share their findings. While the other Autobots do all the manual labor, Wheeljack is inside the comfort of the Ark working on a special project (which will become important later). Spike is reviewing plans for an aborted plesiosaur design. (Seriously. It's a big, fat robot dinosaur with a huge head and a much smaller neck than a brontosaurus. Obviously, it was a design that didn't make the final cut.) The Dinobots seem to be made mostly of unpainted metals, since they're grey and silver. I realize these were the existing colors of the toy, but it does help to make them look a lot like homemade Transformers.
Back at the Decepticon base, Megatron is delighted at the idea of this seemingly perpetual power supply that Soundwave and Reflector have uncovered. He hasn't quite branched out into his wacky plans involving transformation-freezing guns or lightning-shooting beetle guns. This is a fairly straightforward plan to steal energy for fun and profit. Also, Shockwave has been recalled from Cybertron. He's visible in the opening pan of all the Decepticons present at the base (or, at least, his shoulder is). I imagine this sort of mistake is the result of the script saying something like "Megatron addresses all the Decepticons" and the animators didn't know that Shockwave isn't supposed to be included in that tally. As usual, Starscream is a little sassy. I do love the animation in this episode, or at least select parts of it. When Starscream says, "I suppose you've devised a brilliant plan for seizing it?" it's one of my favorite shots of Starscream from the show. The artwork is so dynamic.
I'm not sure about the timeline for this episode. Wheeljack and Ratchet seem to have built the Dinobots almost instantly, when it would make more sense if it took weeks or months for them to put their new project together. If that's the case, though, then were the Decepticons spying on the Great Falls for months? Anyway, all the Autobots have been assembled for the grand Dinobot unveiling. "Autobots—meet Dinobots!" Wheeljack says as Ratchet's mouth moves. He picked a bad time to show off his ventriloquist skills, though, as nobody notices. Bluestreak proceeds to ad-lib several random comments ("holy heterodyne!") in assorted Autobot's voices. I suppose this can be forgiven because this is Bluestreak we're talking about, and he does love to talk.
The new robots stand from left to right: Slag, Sludge, and Grimlock; Wheeljack introduces them as Grimlock, Slag, and Sludge. This is like those movie theater posters where the names of the actors are not positioned properly over the pictures of the actors. "DinoBOTS, eh? I thought you were supposed to make dinoSAURS!" Huffer cackles like an insane person. Ratchet responds by commanding the Dinobots to transform. Slag changes into a triceratops; Sludge turns into a brontosaurus (yes, this is 1984, so it's a brontosaurus); and Grimlock turns into a Tyrannosaurus rex. Interestingly, the Dinobots went through a lot of early proposed names. Slag was, at one stage, going to be called Tricerabot. Early names considered for Grimlock include Tyrannobot, Jawbreaker, and Trapjaw (the name of a He-Man and the Masters of the Universe toy). Sludge might have ended up being called Brontobot or Piledrive (a reference to his ground-stomping ability).
Wheeljack orders the Dinobots to clear the rock debris in front of them, and they respond by powering up their various horns and eyes and mouth lasers before incinerating the rubble. (In the original Rhino DVD release, the special effects are completely missing from this scene, and the rubble steadfastly remains.) Wheeljack explains somewhat apologetically that the Dinobots are equipped with simple robot brains, ostensibly to make them more authentic to actual dinosaurs. I'm not sure if he did this on purpose or not. It's equally possible he simply wasn't capable of making them any smarter. This is the first episode in which we see all-new Transformers being created for the first time, and the lore hadn't been established yet regarding Vector Sigma being required to give new Transformers life. Retroactively, we can only assume that the Dinobots aren't really "alive" in the way that other Transformers are "alive," perhaps more akin to artificial intelligence like Teletraan I.
Well, it's around this time that the Dinobots go a little berserk. Slag plows into Ratchet and Wheeljack head-first. Sludge starts stomping the ground, knocking down Windcharger and Prowl. Grimlock whacks Bluestreak and Brawn with his tail, sending them flying. Optimus tries to take Slag down, but he's heavily shielded in dinosaur mode, and the laser bolts just ricochet off him harmlessly. Aftr Grimlock stumbles clumsily into the control room where Teletraan I is located, Spike and Bumblebee give chase. Apparently, Grimlock once had a highly-detailed animation design which used a lot of the detail of the Hasbro toy and a second, final design that removed a lot of this detail. The detailed design is still in evidence twice in this episode, when he takes aim at the rocky debris earlier and again when he decides to shoot Teletraan. I guess when you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
So, Teletraan predictably explodes, and we see Bumblebee safely clear the explosion before we cut to commercial break. It's still a suspenseful moment (Teletraan may very well be destroyed, and the Autobots still have to deal with the rampaging Dinobot problem) but we already know that Bumblebee's fine, so it's sort of anti-climactic. I've always said that the medium is the message, and we already know to some degree that everything's going to work out fine by the end of the episode (this is a kids' cartoon, after all), but part of the game is that at every seven- and fourteen-minute mark, you spend a couple of minutes wondering how our heroes are going to get out of the specific fix they've gotten themselves into. It's hard to play the game when the episode clearly shows us that Bumblebee is okey-dokey.
As act two begins, Bumblebee slams sideways into a wall with Spike inside. They'll have to build a Frankenstein robot body for Spike now, I guess. Ratchet enters the room and says, "Oh, no! my fondest Autobot comrade and my dear human friend!" No, actually, what he says is, "Poor Teletraan I!" because screw those guys that were almost killed in the explosion. Ratchet does pick up Bumblebee as an afterthought, but Bumblebee drives off in annoyance, revealing that Ratchet has no right leg.
The Autobot/Dinobot shenanigans continue until Optimus Prime has finally had it up to his windshield wipers with robot dinosaurs. He demands that they be destroyed. In a last, desperate ploy, Wheeljack tries his magnetic inducer on them, which seems to immobilize them. Instead of having them dismantled for parts, Prime has them sealed in the dinosaur bone cavern and proclaims they must never be reactivated. All that effort, all those resources, all that labor... Huffer was right! Such a waste.
The Decepticons arrive at the Great Falls and quickly commandeer it. Of note are the humanoid cassette robot designed like Rumble but colored like Brawn (I call him Powerhouse) and the very bright yellow Decepticon jet foot visible in the immediate foreground when the troops touch down (some people might assume this is Sunstorm, but he has a different color scheme; I call this one Yellowbelly). The human workers at the power plant try to contact the Autobot base (one of them is performed by Neil Ross, sounding exactly like Springer) but of course Teletraan is busy being dead right now. When Megatron declares the facility "Decepticon domain," there's a wide shot of the Decepticon troops guarding the power plant. Two of the Decepticon jets present are black and red with light grey wings. Either they colored both of them like Bluestreak (very possible) or this is the first appearance of Frenzy's color scheme. If that's the case, it actually predate Frenzy's first appearance on the show!
While Teletraan is out for repairs, Spike and Hound are patrolling the immediate surroundings for Decepticon activity. The pilot episode also paired Spike and Hound together, but this is the last time we'll see this particular team-up. They just don't seem to be as popular a pairing as Spike and Bumblebee, who were partnered up on the show with much greater frequency. When he picks up electronic signals, he tries to "hologram their source" (because Hound likes verbing words) and, sure enough, he can generate an image of Megatron and Starscream just based on some random electronic signals.
At the volcano, Optimus orders the Autobots into action. "Not you, Bumblebee," he adds after Bumblebee is about halfway through transforming. He shifts back to robot mode with a little frown on his face. Bumblebee is assigned to guard the base while the others are off doing fun and exciting things. For some reason, this moment was cribbed for use in a Transformers coloring book called "A Message from Outer Space" in which Bumblebee is also elected to watch the Autobot camp. Meanwhile, Wheeljack is still working on secret stuff. Highly unauthorized secret stuff.
This is one of the last times in which the Decepticons are shown compressing energon cubes down to a more portable size after filling them. This is also an artifact of the pilot episode, but in most episodes to follow, the cubes are never compressed. In this episode, they're also already multi-spectral in color, even before they're squashed down.
So, the Autobots show up but they don't see the Decepticons right away. (An early print of this episode, the first such version released by Rhino to DVD, showed the Autobots arriving in vehicle mode... and Bluestreak transforming from robot mode to car mode, because the animators sequenced the drawings backwards.) "Maybe Hound's got glitch-mice in his data banks again!" jokes Bluestreak, and proceeds to join himself in the raucous laughter of a single insane person. The other Autobots are not amused... even Trailbreaker, who's supposed to be quite the jokester himself. Also, I'm pretty sure Bluestreak is the idiot who's transforming to the wrong mode, so he's in no position to crack jokes about anyone.
The Decepticons make their presence known and open fire. "Autobots, fight back!" commands Optimus Prime. Yep, that's why they made him leader. Because nobody would have known to return fire if he wasn't there to bark orders. The Autobot response is less than effective. "Nice shootin,' if you were aimin' for the sky!" quips Rumble, even waving at the hapless Autobots before flying away. There's a scene shortly thereafter where literally all seven Autobots in the shot are miscolored (Sideswipe in Sunstreaker colors; Bluestreak in Trailbreaker colors; Brawn in Hound colors; Optimus Prime colored like Sideswipe; Hound colored like Ironhide; Trailbreaker colored like Gears; and Mirage colored like Bluestreak). Granted, they're all tiny drawings and they're shown from the rear, and the animators didn't have 30 years to study the designs of these characters like I have, but still.
Megatron hooks up some cables leading from the power plant to his fusion cannon, ostensibly to boost its destructive power. He blasts the cliff the Autobots are standing on and the entire thing, Autobots and all, plummets into the river. We've already seen in several episodes that the Autobots can function in water just fine (Hound did it in the pilot, and we'll see them do it again in "The Ultimate Doom," "Atlantis, Arise!", etc.) but for this episode, and this episode alone, it's a huge disaster.
As we begin act three, Bumblebee shows up just in time to scoop up Spike and whisk him away from the danger. "Surely a little bath hasn't ended our Autobot problem," observes Starscream. Megatron agrees that they have been short-circuited but not destroyed, but aims to remedy that soon enough. Bumblebee returns to the Autobot base and meets with Wheeljack and Ratchet, who can't raise the Autobots over communication channels. This is their most desperate hour. Wheeljack reveals the project he's been working on is a set of new memory modules that should theoretically upgrade the Dinobots, making them more intelligent and more likely to listen. Bumblebee reminds him of Optimus Prime's decision to never reactivate them, but given the circumstances, the handful of remaining Autobots don't have much of a choice.
The Dinobots are so tall that Wheeljack has to stand on a large rock just to reach their heads and install the memory components. They're shaped like big headbands, and even though they fit on top of their existing helmets, they promptly disappear and we never see them again. There are some odd coloring decisions made... Sludge has a red chest but in the same scene, Slag and Grimlock have orange parts instead. Also, I mentioned earlier that Grimlock had two different animation models, a complex one and a simple one. When he first appeared, he had his standard robot helmet design, but when he's reactivated he's switched to a much more simple helmet style. It's just a round head with a mohawk crest (obviously inspired by the punker at the museum) a couple of horns that poke out, and his optic visor. I really strongly dislike this look for the character. (As an aside, I think this is the head design Grimlock was using for Marvel Comics, particularly during the Andy Wildman days. I think they may have chosen it deliberately to create more of a visual juxtaposition when Grimlock becomes an Action Master and is suddenly drawn exactly like the 1990 action figure.)
The Dinobots are reactivated, and speak for the first time. Wheeljack implored them to save their Autobots friends and their leader. "Save... friends?" parrots an uncertain Slag (voiced by Neil Ross, his first recurring character on the show; he would later be cast as Bonecrusher and Hook). "Save... leader?" repeats Grimlock (Gregg Berger, who also played Skyfire and, later, Long Haul). "Maybe... we... should?" mutters Sludge (Frank Welker). The Dinobots stir into action, blasting a hole in the cavern and departing.
This is where the episode starts to fall apart a little. "Don't stress your circuitry," Megatron taunts the captured Autobots, but the movement of his mouth doesn't even come close to matching his words. The camera pans to a group of Autobots who aren't animated at all (they're tied up in energon chains), and Optimus Prime's body is colored entirely blue. How in the world did nobody notice this? It's perhaps the most egregious, obvious coloring mistake in the entire history of the show. Even my five-year-old daughter noticed ("he's supposed to be RED and blue!"), and she's not even a fan of the show.
The Decepticons prepare to execute them like a high-tech firing squad, but just then the Dinobots appear in the sky. (There seems to be some confusion over whether the Dinobots are supposed to be able to fly or not. In "War of the Dinobots," we see that Grimlock and Slag and Sludge have to wear rocket packs, and Swoop has to carry Snarl around. In this episode, they seem to have natural powers of flight. Wheeljack is also flying with them in this scene, but according to his Hasbro toy biography he has solid-fuel rockets in his arms, so like Sideswipe he's one of the exceptions to the "Autobots can't fly" rule.)
"Which... ones... friends?" Slag wonders. "Um, ones with face like this... I think," responds a non-committal Sludge, pointing to the Autobot sigil on his chest. I think this is the first, and just about only, direct reference in the show to the Autobot insignia. (Sluge also had two different animation models developed, apparently, because for this scene he's drawn with a helmet more closely resembling his Hasbro toy, rather than the oversimplified trapezoid-shaped head he's usually got.) Slag seems satisfied with this answer, pulls his gun out of a compartment in his chest, and goes to work.
"You're supposed to know EVERYTHING," says a truly baffled Starscream. "What ARE those?!" Megatron dismisses them as scrap metal, but the Dinobots are not so easily bested. Wheeljack takes the opportunity to take a pot shot of his own at the Decepticon leader, launching a gyro-inhibitor shell that compells Megatron to drop to his knees. Starscream instantly seizes the opportunity for oneupmanship. "Megatron has fallen!" he proclaims with glee. The others (Thundercracker, Soundwave, Skywarp, Reflector, Rumble) seem remarkably okay with this and immediately fall in line. They clearly haven't grown tired of this schtick just yet. I guess it does make sense to have a clearly-established hierarchy for situations like this. I mean, if Optimus Prime were out of commission, the Autobots would have absolutely no idea who was in charge.
Thundercracker attacks Slag in a fitting match; Thundercracker uses his incendiary blasts, but Slag responds with a flamethrower breath. Bet he wasn't expecting the Dinobot to beat him at his own game! Rumble picks a fight with Sludge, which is likewise unfortunate, as Sludge possesses the same ground-shaking powers. Sludge creates a crack in the ground that knocks Rumble over and pops his pile driver arms right off. "No faaaaair!" he whines. Skywarp tries to strafe Grimlock, who catches Skywarp's wing in his mouth. Somebody at Hasbro must have really liked this imagery; they did it in the toy commercial for the Dinobots, and did it again for the opening animated sequence for season two.
"We must keep fighting at all costs!" yells one of the Decepticons. It kind of sounds like Megatron, but I know it's not Megatron because he always calls the retreat. Holy shit, it actually was Megatron. Incredible. He struggles to his feet, switches to gun mode, and leaps into the air, seemingly clamping magnetically to the bottom of Starscream's jet mode. Well, that's a neat trick. Elsewhere, Wheeljack notices the discarded pile of Autobot munitions and realizes he can use them to save the Autobots. He uses the flare gun carried by Sideswipe to elimiate the last vestiges of water from their circuitry. This in itself seems strange, since the flares described in Sideswipe's toy biography are actually the silver missiles that came with the Sunstreaker toy. (Sideswipe's own toy instructions call his handheld weapon a "laser gun.") Wheeljack holds up another, identical gun and declares that "Bluestreak's bolts will give you all an instant recharge!" It's true that Bluestreak does carry an 80,000-volt beam gun. He's got the highest firepower of any of the 1984 Autobots, though, so it makes zero sense that his gun can recharge robots.
Anyway, the battle with the Dinobots continues, and one of them scores a lucky shot, knocking Megatron from Starscream's jet mode. Finally, he calls the retreat. Now there's the Megatron we know and love. Starscream, Thundercracker, and another Starscream all have bright orange jet noses as they transform.
The scene feels oddly tense as the Dinobots return to robot mode and Bumblebee and Wheeljack both present themselves to Optimus, awaiting whatever punishment he's got in mind. Optimus spouts a platitude about how "sometimes even the wisest of men and machines can be in error" without actually apologizing or admitting that he was wrong. He foregoes any formal reprimand and declares that "the Dinobots shall remain among us... trapped in a closet." Everyone cheers. The suspenseful music really doesn't fit the scene, though, as it builds to a climax and not a resolution. It feels like yet another cliffhanger moment. Chalk it up to the relatively limited music library during this point in the show, I guess.
Here's an alternate version of the ending I put together:
https://youtu.be/Qy0PsH8mvVY
The other two Dinobots will be introduced in a couple of episodes down the road in "War of the Dinobots." I'm honestly not sure why their intro was purposefully delayed. (Apparently I said something terribly obnoxious about this the last time we discussed it.)
I feel like I've watched this episode a lot compared to other episodes. It was in heavy rotation during season one when the number of episodes in existence was comparatively small, and it was also one of the episodes aired in the 1990's as part of Transformers: Generation 2. It has some really good moments, but I feel like for every exceptionally-animated scene there's also at least one really bad animation error to go along with it. Toei had some incredibly talented artists working for them, but it's a real shame they were so rushed into producing animated footage so quickly.
Should we do "War of the Dinobots" next? Or something else?
Zob (immensely fond of Jimmy John's sammiches)
The Dinobots were some of the most exciting toys to come out of the Transformers toy line. Sure, robots who turned into cars and planes were great, but robot who turned into dinosaurs were totally awesome. Originally part of the Diaclone toy line, Hasbro could have theoretically launched the toy line, and cartoon, including them from the very start. Instead, they wisely waited, introducing more basic toys first and then working in the Dinobots and Insecticons and Constructicons into later episodes and toy assortments.
The episode begins at Autobot Headquarters, with our heroes detecting some tremors coming from somewhere within the volcano. While Ironhide is quick to blame Rumble and his quake-creating powers, Spike observes that it seems to be emanating from within the cavern walls of their volcano base. Ironhide confirms the presence of something unusual with his sonidar sensor (this accessory was included with the recent Masterpiece Ironhide toy). We as the viewing audience can identify it as the fossilized skull of a triceratops, but the Autobots simply have no clue what they've discovered. A excavation expedition is thus called for. Our Autobot archeologists include Optimus Prime, Ironhide, Sideswipe, Brawn, Wheeljack, and Spike.
"Feels like stone," Wheeljack observes before he even picks up a dinosaur bone. Also, for some reason, Wheeljack's phototronic information gatherers are flashing an unusual orange color when he speaks instead of the standard blue color. Even more unusual than this, though, is that all these dinosaur fossils are just sitting out in the open. If the dinosaurs had died in the cavern millions of years ago, their bones would have crumbled to dust. Fossilization occurs when the organic bone tissue is replaced with mineral deposits, which can only happen when the bones are buried. Maybe Ironhide really was right all along, and it was some kind of a Decepticon plot.
Spike explains what the fossils are. Sometimes I think he's only in these episodes to help move the plot along. Every young boy is fascinated with dinosaurs, so it's forgivable in this instance that Spike would possess this specific knowledge. Jazz has suddenly appeared as part of the Autobot group. The animators were so bad at keeping track of specific mission participants. Wheeljack's scientific curiosity about dinosaurs is piqued, and even Optimus Prime wants to know more about them. He draws his hand to his chin in comntemplation in this grand, sweeping gesture. There is no way he needed to swing his arm that wide just to reach his face.
At a hydroelectric plant called the Great Falls, Soundwave and Reflector are in their Earth modes conducting a reconnaissance mission. One of the humans (Gregg Berger, doing his Orson the Pig voice) offers a convenient explanation about how the waterfall is harnessed to create electrical power. If this were a season two episode, the Decepticons would just have installed a rock with a built-in camera somewhere, but this is early before their foothold on the planet was clearly established, so they have to go out into the world in person. They return to their undersea base to report to Megatron.
Elsewhere, Spike is taking the Autobots to the museum. It looks a little like the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, IL, which in 1984 would have included one of the most extensive dinosaur exhibits in the world. SPike and Hound pass by a punk rocker in a mohawk. "Now that's what I call heavy metal!" the punk observes. It was more of a topical reference than it is today, but it's still cute.
Hound is able to shoot the exhibits with his hologram gun and extrapolate what they would look like as living creatures (don't worry, the holograms don't hurt the fossils... also, they're just plaster replicas). "Very impressive," Optimus Prime says dryly before the holograms are even generated. There are some serious timing issues in this episode already. Also, apparently Hound's holograms go so far as to create squealing and growling sounds for the dinosaurs, as well as changing the entire background of the museum into a prehistoric valley.
The gears in Wheeljack's mad scientist brain start turning, and he starts talking about how great it would be to have dinosaurs working for the Autobots. He's probably already thinking about extracting DNA samples from fossilized amber and creating some organic clones in his lab. Ratchet suggests the somewhat more pedestrian approach of constructing robotic equivalents instead. Optimus Prime seems to think that this is an excellent idea. He won't give Grapple permission to build an energy-collecting tower, but he'll give Wheeljack and Ratchet the go-ahead to build some gigantic lumbering prehistoric beasts. I don't see any aspect of this going wrong at all. "It'll never work... big waste of time," predicts Huffer. Somebody give that guy an award.
The Autobots use the cavern where the priceless dinosaur fossils have been discovered and turn it into a construction site. No phone calls to human archeaologists to share their findings. While the other Autobots do all the manual labor, Wheeljack is inside the comfort of the Ark working on a special project (which will become important later). Spike is reviewing plans for an aborted plesiosaur design. (Seriously. It's a big, fat robot dinosaur with a huge head and a much smaller neck than a brontosaurus. Obviously, it was a design that didn't make the final cut.) The Dinobots seem to be made mostly of unpainted metals, since they're grey and silver. I realize these were the existing colors of the toy, but it does help to make them look a lot like homemade Transformers.
Back at the Decepticon base, Megatron is delighted at the idea of this seemingly perpetual power supply that Soundwave and Reflector have uncovered. He hasn't quite branched out into his wacky plans involving transformation-freezing guns or lightning-shooting beetle guns. This is a fairly straightforward plan to steal energy for fun and profit. Also, Shockwave has been recalled from Cybertron. He's visible in the opening pan of all the Decepticons present at the base (or, at least, his shoulder is). I imagine this sort of mistake is the result of the script saying something like "Megatron addresses all the Decepticons" and the animators didn't know that Shockwave isn't supposed to be included in that tally. As usual, Starscream is a little sassy. I do love the animation in this episode, or at least select parts of it. When Starscream says, "I suppose you've devised a brilliant plan for seizing it?" it's one of my favorite shots of Starscream from the show. The artwork is so dynamic.
I'm not sure about the timeline for this episode. Wheeljack and Ratchet seem to have built the Dinobots almost instantly, when it would make more sense if it took weeks or months for them to put their new project together. If that's the case, though, then were the Decepticons spying on the Great Falls for months? Anyway, all the Autobots have been assembled for the grand Dinobot unveiling. "Autobots—meet Dinobots!" Wheeljack says as Ratchet's mouth moves. He picked a bad time to show off his ventriloquist skills, though, as nobody notices. Bluestreak proceeds to ad-lib several random comments ("holy heterodyne!") in assorted Autobot's voices. I suppose this can be forgiven because this is Bluestreak we're talking about, and he does love to talk.
The new robots stand from left to right: Slag, Sludge, and Grimlock; Wheeljack introduces them as Grimlock, Slag, and Sludge. This is like those movie theater posters where the names of the actors are not positioned properly over the pictures of the actors. "DinoBOTS, eh? I thought you were supposed to make dinoSAURS!" Huffer cackles like an insane person. Ratchet responds by commanding the Dinobots to transform. Slag changes into a triceratops; Sludge turns into a brontosaurus (yes, this is 1984, so it's a brontosaurus); and Grimlock turns into a Tyrannosaurus rex. Interestingly, the Dinobots went through a lot of early proposed names. Slag was, at one stage, going to be called Tricerabot. Early names considered for Grimlock include Tyrannobot, Jawbreaker, and Trapjaw (the name of a He-Man and the Masters of the Universe toy). Sludge might have ended up being called Brontobot or Piledrive (a reference to his ground-stomping ability).
Wheeljack orders the Dinobots to clear the rock debris in front of them, and they respond by powering up their various horns and eyes and mouth lasers before incinerating the rubble. (In the original Rhino DVD release, the special effects are completely missing from this scene, and the rubble steadfastly remains.) Wheeljack explains somewhat apologetically that the Dinobots are equipped with simple robot brains, ostensibly to make them more authentic to actual dinosaurs. I'm not sure if he did this on purpose or not. It's equally possible he simply wasn't capable of making them any smarter. This is the first episode in which we see all-new Transformers being created for the first time, and the lore hadn't been established yet regarding Vector Sigma being required to give new Transformers life. Retroactively, we can only assume that the Dinobots aren't really "alive" in the way that other Transformers are "alive," perhaps more akin to artificial intelligence like Teletraan I.
Well, it's around this time that the Dinobots go a little berserk. Slag plows into Ratchet and Wheeljack head-first. Sludge starts stomping the ground, knocking down Windcharger and Prowl. Grimlock whacks Bluestreak and Brawn with his tail, sending them flying. Optimus tries to take Slag down, but he's heavily shielded in dinosaur mode, and the laser bolts just ricochet off him harmlessly. Aftr Grimlock stumbles clumsily into the control room where Teletraan I is located, Spike and Bumblebee give chase. Apparently, Grimlock once had a highly-detailed animation design which used a lot of the detail of the Hasbro toy and a second, final design that removed a lot of this detail. The detailed design is still in evidence twice in this episode, when he takes aim at the rocky debris earlier and again when he decides to shoot Teletraan. I guess when you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
So, Teletraan predictably explodes, and we see Bumblebee safely clear the explosion before we cut to commercial break. It's still a suspenseful moment (Teletraan may very well be destroyed, and the Autobots still have to deal with the rampaging Dinobot problem) but we already know that Bumblebee's fine, so it's sort of anti-climactic. I've always said that the medium is the message, and we already know to some degree that everything's going to work out fine by the end of the episode (this is a kids' cartoon, after all), but part of the game is that at every seven- and fourteen-minute mark, you spend a couple of minutes wondering how our heroes are going to get out of the specific fix they've gotten themselves into. It's hard to play the game when the episode clearly shows us that Bumblebee is okey-dokey.
As act two begins, Bumblebee slams sideways into a wall with Spike inside. They'll have to build a Frankenstein robot body for Spike now, I guess. Ratchet enters the room and says, "Oh, no! my fondest Autobot comrade and my dear human friend!" No, actually, what he says is, "Poor Teletraan I!" because screw those guys that were almost killed in the explosion. Ratchet does pick up Bumblebee as an afterthought, but Bumblebee drives off in annoyance, revealing that Ratchet has no right leg.
The Autobot/Dinobot shenanigans continue until Optimus Prime has finally had it up to his windshield wipers with robot dinosaurs. He demands that they be destroyed. In a last, desperate ploy, Wheeljack tries his magnetic inducer on them, which seems to immobilize them. Instead of having them dismantled for parts, Prime has them sealed in the dinosaur bone cavern and proclaims they must never be reactivated. All that effort, all those resources, all that labor... Huffer was right! Such a waste.
The Decepticons arrive at the Great Falls and quickly commandeer it. Of note are the humanoid cassette robot designed like Rumble but colored like Brawn (I call him Powerhouse) and the very bright yellow Decepticon jet foot visible in the immediate foreground when the troops touch down (some people might assume this is Sunstorm, but he has a different color scheme; I call this one Yellowbelly). The human workers at the power plant try to contact the Autobot base (one of them is performed by Neil Ross, sounding exactly like Springer) but of course Teletraan is busy being dead right now. When Megatron declares the facility "Decepticon domain," there's a wide shot of the Decepticon troops guarding the power plant. Two of the Decepticon jets present are black and red with light grey wings. Either they colored both of them like Bluestreak (very possible) or this is the first appearance of Frenzy's color scheme. If that's the case, it actually predate Frenzy's first appearance on the show!
While Teletraan is out for repairs, Spike and Hound are patrolling the immediate surroundings for Decepticon activity. The pilot episode also paired Spike and Hound together, but this is the last time we'll see this particular team-up. They just don't seem to be as popular a pairing as Spike and Bumblebee, who were partnered up on the show with much greater frequency. When he picks up electronic signals, he tries to "hologram their source" (because Hound likes verbing words) and, sure enough, he can generate an image of Megatron and Starscream just based on some random electronic signals.
At the volcano, Optimus orders the Autobots into action. "Not you, Bumblebee," he adds after Bumblebee is about halfway through transforming. He shifts back to robot mode with a little frown on his face. Bumblebee is assigned to guard the base while the others are off doing fun and exciting things. For some reason, this moment was cribbed for use in a Transformers coloring book called "A Message from Outer Space" in which Bumblebee is also elected to watch the Autobot camp. Meanwhile, Wheeljack is still working on secret stuff. Highly unauthorized secret stuff.
This is one of the last times in which the Decepticons are shown compressing energon cubes down to a more portable size after filling them. This is also an artifact of the pilot episode, but in most episodes to follow, the cubes are never compressed. In this episode, they're also already multi-spectral in color, even before they're squashed down.
So, the Autobots show up but they don't see the Decepticons right away. (An early print of this episode, the first such version released by Rhino to DVD, showed the Autobots arriving in vehicle mode... and Bluestreak transforming from robot mode to car mode, because the animators sequenced the drawings backwards.) "Maybe Hound's got glitch-mice in his data banks again!" jokes Bluestreak, and proceeds to join himself in the raucous laughter of a single insane person. The other Autobots are not amused... even Trailbreaker, who's supposed to be quite the jokester himself. Also, I'm pretty sure Bluestreak is the idiot who's transforming to the wrong mode, so he's in no position to crack jokes about anyone.
The Decepticons make their presence known and open fire. "Autobots, fight back!" commands Optimus Prime. Yep, that's why they made him leader. Because nobody would have known to return fire if he wasn't there to bark orders. The Autobot response is less than effective. "Nice shootin,' if you were aimin' for the sky!" quips Rumble, even waving at the hapless Autobots before flying away. There's a scene shortly thereafter where literally all seven Autobots in the shot are miscolored (Sideswipe in Sunstreaker colors; Bluestreak in Trailbreaker colors; Brawn in Hound colors; Optimus Prime colored like Sideswipe; Hound colored like Ironhide; Trailbreaker colored like Gears; and Mirage colored like Bluestreak). Granted, they're all tiny drawings and they're shown from the rear, and the animators didn't have 30 years to study the designs of these characters like I have, but still.
Megatron hooks up some cables leading from the power plant to his fusion cannon, ostensibly to boost its destructive power. He blasts the cliff the Autobots are standing on and the entire thing, Autobots and all, plummets into the river. We've already seen in several episodes that the Autobots can function in water just fine (Hound did it in the pilot, and we'll see them do it again in "The Ultimate Doom," "Atlantis, Arise!", etc.) but for this episode, and this episode alone, it's a huge disaster.
As we begin act three, Bumblebee shows up just in time to scoop up Spike and whisk him away from the danger. "Surely a little bath hasn't ended our Autobot problem," observes Starscream. Megatron agrees that they have been short-circuited but not destroyed, but aims to remedy that soon enough. Bumblebee returns to the Autobot base and meets with Wheeljack and Ratchet, who can't raise the Autobots over communication channels. This is their most desperate hour. Wheeljack reveals the project he's been working on is a set of new memory modules that should theoretically upgrade the Dinobots, making them more intelligent and more likely to listen. Bumblebee reminds him of Optimus Prime's decision to never reactivate them, but given the circumstances, the handful of remaining Autobots don't have much of a choice.
The Dinobots are so tall that Wheeljack has to stand on a large rock just to reach their heads and install the memory components. They're shaped like big headbands, and even though they fit on top of their existing helmets, they promptly disappear and we never see them again. There are some odd coloring decisions made... Sludge has a red chest but in the same scene, Slag and Grimlock have orange parts instead. Also, I mentioned earlier that Grimlock had two different animation models, a complex one and a simple one. When he first appeared, he had his standard robot helmet design, but when he's reactivated he's switched to a much more simple helmet style. It's just a round head with a mohawk crest (obviously inspired by the punker at the museum) a couple of horns that poke out, and his optic visor. I really strongly dislike this look for the character. (As an aside, I think this is the head design Grimlock was using for Marvel Comics, particularly during the Andy Wildman days. I think they may have chosen it deliberately to create more of a visual juxtaposition when Grimlock becomes an Action Master and is suddenly drawn exactly like the 1990 action figure.)
The Dinobots are reactivated, and speak for the first time. Wheeljack implored them to save their Autobots friends and their leader. "Save... friends?" parrots an uncertain Slag (voiced by Neil Ross, his first recurring character on the show; he would later be cast as Bonecrusher and Hook). "Save... leader?" repeats Grimlock (Gregg Berger, who also played Skyfire and, later, Long Haul). "Maybe... we... should?" mutters Sludge (Frank Welker). The Dinobots stir into action, blasting a hole in the cavern and departing.
This is where the episode starts to fall apart a little. "Don't stress your circuitry," Megatron taunts the captured Autobots, but the movement of his mouth doesn't even come close to matching his words. The camera pans to a group of Autobots who aren't animated at all (they're tied up in energon chains), and Optimus Prime's body is colored entirely blue. How in the world did nobody notice this? It's perhaps the most egregious, obvious coloring mistake in the entire history of the show. Even my five-year-old daughter noticed ("he's supposed to be RED and blue!"), and she's not even a fan of the show.
The Decepticons prepare to execute them like a high-tech firing squad, but just then the Dinobots appear in the sky. (There seems to be some confusion over whether the Dinobots are supposed to be able to fly or not. In "War of the Dinobots," we see that Grimlock and Slag and Sludge have to wear rocket packs, and Swoop has to carry Snarl around. In this episode, they seem to have natural powers of flight. Wheeljack is also flying with them in this scene, but according to his Hasbro toy biography he has solid-fuel rockets in his arms, so like Sideswipe he's one of the exceptions to the "Autobots can't fly" rule.)
"Which... ones... friends?" Slag wonders. "Um, ones with face like this... I think," responds a non-committal Sludge, pointing to the Autobot sigil on his chest. I think this is the first, and just about only, direct reference in the show to the Autobot insignia. (Sluge also had two different animation models developed, apparently, because for this scene he's drawn with a helmet more closely resembling his Hasbro toy, rather than the oversimplified trapezoid-shaped head he's usually got.) Slag seems satisfied with this answer, pulls his gun out of a compartment in his chest, and goes to work.
"You're supposed to know EVERYTHING," says a truly baffled Starscream. "What ARE those?!" Megatron dismisses them as scrap metal, but the Dinobots are not so easily bested. Wheeljack takes the opportunity to take a pot shot of his own at the Decepticon leader, launching a gyro-inhibitor shell that compells Megatron to drop to his knees. Starscream instantly seizes the opportunity for oneupmanship. "Megatron has fallen!" he proclaims with glee. The others (Thundercracker, Soundwave, Skywarp, Reflector, Rumble) seem remarkably okay with this and immediately fall in line. They clearly haven't grown tired of this schtick just yet. I guess it does make sense to have a clearly-established hierarchy for situations like this. I mean, if Optimus Prime were out of commission, the Autobots would have absolutely no idea who was in charge.
Thundercracker attacks Slag in a fitting match; Thundercracker uses his incendiary blasts, but Slag responds with a flamethrower breath. Bet he wasn't expecting the Dinobot to beat him at his own game! Rumble picks a fight with Sludge, which is likewise unfortunate, as Sludge possesses the same ground-shaking powers. Sludge creates a crack in the ground that knocks Rumble over and pops his pile driver arms right off. "No faaaaair!" he whines. Skywarp tries to strafe Grimlock, who catches Skywarp's wing in his mouth. Somebody at Hasbro must have really liked this imagery; they did it in the toy commercial for the Dinobots, and did it again for the opening animated sequence for season two.
"We must keep fighting at all costs!" yells one of the Decepticons. It kind of sounds like Megatron, but I know it's not Megatron because he always calls the retreat. Holy shit, it actually was Megatron. Incredible. He struggles to his feet, switches to gun mode, and leaps into the air, seemingly clamping magnetically to the bottom of Starscream's jet mode. Well, that's a neat trick. Elsewhere, Wheeljack notices the discarded pile of Autobot munitions and realizes he can use them to save the Autobots. He uses the flare gun carried by Sideswipe to elimiate the last vestiges of water from their circuitry. This in itself seems strange, since the flares described in Sideswipe's toy biography are actually the silver missiles that came with the Sunstreaker toy. (Sideswipe's own toy instructions call his handheld weapon a "laser gun.") Wheeljack holds up another, identical gun and declares that "Bluestreak's bolts will give you all an instant recharge!" It's true that Bluestreak does carry an 80,000-volt beam gun. He's got the highest firepower of any of the 1984 Autobots, though, so it makes zero sense that his gun can recharge robots.
Anyway, the battle with the Dinobots continues, and one of them scores a lucky shot, knocking Megatron from Starscream's jet mode. Finally, he calls the retreat. Now there's the Megatron we know and love. Starscream, Thundercracker, and another Starscream all have bright orange jet noses as they transform.
The scene feels oddly tense as the Dinobots return to robot mode and Bumblebee and Wheeljack both present themselves to Optimus, awaiting whatever punishment he's got in mind. Optimus spouts a platitude about how "sometimes even the wisest of men and machines can be in error" without actually apologizing or admitting that he was wrong. He foregoes any formal reprimand and declares that "the Dinobots shall remain among us... trapped in a closet." Everyone cheers. The suspenseful music really doesn't fit the scene, though, as it builds to a climax and not a resolution. It feels like yet another cliffhanger moment. Chalk it up to the relatively limited music library during this point in the show, I guess.
Here's an alternate version of the ending I put together:
https://youtu.be/Qy0PsH8mvVY
The other two Dinobots will be introduced in a couple of episodes down the road in "War of the Dinobots." I'm honestly not sure why their intro was purposefully delayed. (Apparently I said something terribly obnoxious about this the last time we discussed it.)
I feel like I've watched this episode a lot compared to other episodes. It was in heavy rotation during season one when the number of episodes in existence was comparatively small, and it was also one of the episodes aired in the 1990's as part of Transformers: Generation 2. It has some really good moments, but I feel like for every exceptionally-animated scene there's also at least one really bad animation error to go along with it. Toei had some incredibly talented artists working for them, but it's a real shame they were so rushed into producing animated footage so quickly.
Should we do "War of the Dinobots" next? Or something else?
Zob (immensely fond of Jimmy John's sammiches)
Optim_1
Mar 16, 2018, 10:59:10 AM3/16/18
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On Wednesday, 14 March 2018 22:28:51 UTC-4, Zobovor wrote:
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> SPike and Hound pass by a punk rocker in a mohawk. "Now that's what I call heavy metal!" the punk observes. It was more of a topical reference than it is today, but it's still cute.
I always loved that line. Transformers Wiki apparently does not. They have no sense of humour.
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> SPike and Hound pass by a punk rocker in a mohawk. "Now that's what I call heavy metal!" the punk observes. It was more of a topical reference than it is today, but it's still cute.
Optimus Prime seems to think that this is an excellent idea. He won't give Grapple permission to build an energy-collecting tower, but he'll give Wheeljack and Ratchet the go-ahead to build some gigantic lumbering prehistoric beasts. I don't see any aspect of this going wrong at all. "It'll never work... big waste of time," predicts Huffer. Somebody give that guy an award.
>
> "Which... ones... friends?" Slag wonders. "Um, ones with face like this... I think," responds a non-committal Sludge, pointing to the Autobot sigil on his chest. I think this is the first, and just about only, direct reference in the show to the Autobot insignia. (Sluge also had two different animation models developed, apparently, because for this scene he's drawn with a helmet more closely resembling his Hasbro toy, rather than the oversimplified trapezoid-shaped head he's usually got.)
>
>
> The scene feels oddly tense as the Dinobots return to robot mode and Bumblebee and Wheeljack both present themselves to Optimus, awaiting whatever punishment he's got in mind. Optimus spouts a platitude about how "sometimes even the wisest of men and machines can be in error" without actually apologizing or admitting that he was wrong. He foregoes any formal reprimand and declares that "the Dinobots shall remain among us... trapped in a closet." Everyone cheers. The suspenseful music really doesn't fit the scene, though, as it builds to a climax and not a resolution. It feels like yet another cliffhanger moment. Chalk it up to the relatively limited music library during this point in the show, I guess.
Of course, without the Dinobots in this episode, the Autobots would have been dead.
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