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Cartoon Viewing Club: Zob's Thoughts on "Changing Gears"
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Zobovor
Jun 15, 2017, 8:42:25 PM6/15/17
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Got sick right before vacation, and now I'm on vacation. So, naturally, I've been much busier today than I would have been if I'd just been at work. Vacations seriously do take so much effort. Good thing I wrote this review weeks ago!
"Changing Gears" is episode #18 of the original Transformers cartoon, and only the second episode of season two (but still exclusively featuring season one characters). It was written by Larry Parr, a fairly prolific script writer who submitted stories to shows like the 1981 Spider-Man cartoon, the Smurfs, and two really bad episodes of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series. This was his only Transfomers story. (Given how it turned out, maybe that's for the best.)
So, the episode opens with some mine shaft workers striking it rich. They've unearthed so much gold that they come out of the mines with an entire mine car full of the stuff. The Decepticons show up and blast it to bits, thus disrupting the world economy as we know it. (Now, compare this to the scene from "Nightmare Planet" when Razorclaw is listening to the princess, and expresses incredible fascination with the prospect of being rewarded in gold for his services. Do the Decepticons place value upon gold, or don't they?)
Soundwave dispatches Laserbeak, and it's a line drawing identical to a scene used in one of the first-season episodes, "Roll for It." It's just footage of Soundwave ejecting a tape, so there's nothing necessarily wrong with Toei recycling some artwork elements when it's warranted. There's a lot more recycled artwork in this show than I think anybody realized, though. A while back, I was taking screen captures of characters' vehicle modes (most people focus on the robot modes, you know) and after I compiled them, I realized I had three or four screen shots of Bumblebee that were identical drawings, despite coming from different episodes and having different backgrounds. It's not technically recycled footage per se, because there are sometimes minor coloring differences, but it's clear the same line drawings were repurposed.
Ravage is also ejected, and the tapes capture two of the miners. Megatron shows up a few minutes later and wants to know how things are going. Why didn't he lead the mission in the first place? Why was he lagging behind? Was there an episode of As the Kitchen Sinks that he needed to finish? Anyway, Starscream threatens to destroy the last of the humans, but Megatron won't hear of it, knocking Starscream aside. "He must be permitted to call for help; it is my plan!" Megatron boasts. Curiouser and curiouser.
The Autobots receive the distress call and every Autobot in the base rushes to the control room... except for Gears, who takes his sweet time meandering to his post. Gears is the focus of this episode, so he's extra-grumpy in this one. Indeed, this is really the first episode to establish the long-standing tradition of showcase episodes—stories that focus predominantly on a single Autobot character, who will largely fade into the background afterwards. Gears had a few moments to shine during the first season, but nothing like this episode.
So, Gears had a lube job interrupted and he's not happy about it. When Ironhide offers a brief explanation about putting his duty before his maintenance, he replies, "That's easy for you to say! Your PULLEYS DON'T SQUEAK!" Bumblebee somersaults right over Gears' shoulders, and I'm not sure if this is supposed to demonstrate that Gears is in everybody's way, or just that Bumblebee is kind of a jerk sometimes. Anyway, Prime explains that a human mining operation is under attack and called for help. So far, it's a fairly cut-and-dried episode. Decepticons attack; Autobots respond.
Characters that Prime takes along with him include Blow-Out (yellow Cliffjumper), Mirage, Wheeljack, Sunstreaker, Trailbreaker, Jazz, Hound, Ratchet, and Ironhide... depending on what scene you're looking at. The show was really bad about maintaining a consistent Autobot roster throughout an entire episode, so there were occasional glitches in the line-up. For example, we don't actually see Gears with the group as they depart at all. Huffer is visible in a long shot of the convoy driving away. Bluestreak pops up as they arrive on scene. Brawn is visible as they arrive. Bumblebee shows up during the ensuing battle. All in all, it's just wildly inconsistent.
The Autobots arrive on scene to find the human miners trapped in an energy cage. Prime fires the first shot, knocking Megatron and Starscream to the ground. The fight is on. Megatron shoots the energy cage, prompting the workers to flee. Prime orders a ceasefire to prevent any harm coming to them. There's also some really hammy dialogue. "Give it up, Megatron! You've lost!" Prime says. "Your pathetic concern for humans demonstrates that you're weak, Optimus Prime! That is why I shall destroy you!" Megatron counters. I've read that script writers were on a tight deadline for this show and were required to produced finished scripts in 48 hours. Now I'm beginning to believe it. (Apparently Ron Friedman forgot to work his dialogue magic on this episode.)
Megatron produces a handheld gun, which in itself is a rarity. He uses it to energize some nearby boulders, compelling them to fly into Optimus and the others, knocking them down. (I choose to believe that this is the handheld gun that came with the G1 Megatron toy. Isn't it weird that a guy who turned into a gun would carry a gun?) Oddly, Megatron identifies Gears by name and chooses to target him specifically. He switches to gun mode and falls into Soundwave's waiting grasp, firing several shots directly in front of Gears until the ground is blasted away and Gears falls into the resulting gap. Starscream is about to blast Gears when Megatron backhands him again, for the second time in this episode alone. (It's also a recycled bit of animation.) Skywarp carries Gears away and Prime laments his capture as they fly off.
I've always thought that Gears got his name because of the shape of the toy's tires, which look a little like mechanical gears with interlocking teeth. (Brawn had the exact same tires, of course.) The name is fairly nondescript for a robot. If it was a G.I. Joe code name, one might infer he was a mechanic or an inventor. For a robot, the name Gears is like calling a character Wires or Circuits. Every robot has gears inside him, doesn't he?
So, now we get to the meat of Megatron's actual plan. The attack on the mining camp was just a ruse to draw the Autobots out of hiding and capture Gears. Of course, the Autobots chosen for any given mission are so random that it's likely he wouldn't have even been present at all. I guess Megatron would have to keep attacking random places until Gears finally showed up on a mission. Wouldn't it have just been easier to squirt some invisibility spray on himself, sneak into the base, and capture Gears directly?
Megatron has an invention called the solar needle, which has been constructed in Africa. (The episode later describes it as "the geographic center of Africa" which might place it somewhere in Zaire, which has been since renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo). Somehow, Gears seems to be the lynchpin to make the solar needle work. Gears is adamantly and steadfastly refusing to cooperate, until Starscream zaps him with a null ray, freezes him, and removes a circuit card from his chest. A sensor scan the Decepticons had conducted at some point previously, Megatron explains, revealed that Gears possessed the special component that Megatron required.
Gears suddenly undergoes a dramatic personality shift. He's actually smiling, now, and he's feeling very jovial and good-natured. Megatron makes a dismissive remark about how the circuit card had been modulating his personality. Once he inserts the circuit into the solar needle, it roars to life, sending a beam of energy into space and right into the heart of the Sun itself. The disruption is felt around the world... Italy, France, the United States. Thank goodness for convenient, familiar landmarks to serve as a visual shorthand.
We really need to look deeper at this. For one, it's an incredibly risky move for Megatron to build a machine that depends completely upon an component that he doesn't even possess yet. What if Gears had gone back to Cybertron on a mission? What if Starscream had killed him? The solar needle would be worthless. Of course, the episode dances around the issue of just why the solar needle needs this thing to work, or why Gears (and ONLY Gears) has one. I guess we need to look at Gears' actual job. His tech specs list his function as transport and reconnaissance. He's a truck. He's made to haul stuff. Maybe, MAYBE, he's got really good navigation circuits or something, and Megatron's using the circuit card as an astronavigation tool to track the Sun as the Earth moves through space. That's the best I can come up with, but it's a huge stretch. Also, it's not supported by the episode at all. Of course, no theory would be supported by the episode, because the episode offers zero explanation of what's happening here.
And then there's the matter of Gears' weird personality switch. Yes, yes, the episode title "Changing Gears" is awfully cute, because it normally refers to a car shifting to a different gear, but in this case, Gears is literally being changed. Ho, ho! Comedy gold! It's like somebody came up with the entire episode premise based on the title (a bit like "Sea Change," that way). If having this circuit card really fundamentally changes his personality so drastically, then we can conclude a couple of things. For one, it's not supposed to be there. It's not a factory component. Two, he must have some reason for wanting it there. He knows that it alters his personality and turns him into a total dickhead, but it's so important that he keeps it there anyway because whatever benefit it offers him is even more valuable to him than actually being liked on a personal level.
A while back I postulated the idea that Gears, without the circuit card, is much closer to a Quintesson product. Yup, it always comes back to the Quintessons. Seriously, though, he's an obedient and willing robot servant, which is exactly how the Quintessons would have marketed the consumer goods product line, back in the day. So, maybe the circuit card was an attempt at subverting the Quintesson programming? I don't really know how old Gears is. No references are ever made about his age, and aside from being grouchy, there's nothing about him to suggest that he's as old as Ironhide or Kup. With that in mind, though, he could be an early model. (We know Thundercracker remembers the Guardian Robots, and Blitzwing has faint memories of the Quintessons, and neither of them seems particularly old, either.)
At some point, it's possible the Autobots figured out that by introducing some new circuitry enabled them to reroute the Quintesson slave programming, enabling them to act freely instead of performing as slaves. Maybe the new circuitry changes their personalities so drastically, though, that not many Autobots use one. It's possible that in some cases, a new circuit card makes them insane or psychotic or murderous. Gears is merely an asshole, so he gets off fairly lightly, all things considered.
Really, though, you have to jump through so many hoops to explain just what's going on in this episode that you could write an entire fanfic about it. You shouldn't have to do this much work and have to pull from so many sources just to get this one story to come together.
By the way, this episode holds the special honor of being the very first episode I ever managed to record off the Sci-Fi Channel. A friend of mine had told me that they were airing old Transformers cartoons, and it was the first time I'd had the opportuntiy to see the show since it was taken off syndication in the late 1980's, so this was amazing news. I quickly filled up several VHS tapes and amassed a complete library of episodes. Even with this first episode, though, I knew something was dreadfully wrong. There were scenes missing! Had the master tapes been damaged somehow? Were they cutting moments to allow for more commercials? This episode ended up being one of the most egregious examples of poor editing. All of Gears' dialogue was mercilessly chopped up until the moment that he gets reprogrammed. So, literally his first line in the entire episode was now, "What happened? Suddenly I feel so good-natured!" Compared to what, exactly? You haven't said anything up until now!
Back at the Autobot base, Prime is determined to recover Gears. The solar flares create earthquakes that cause chunks of the volcano to come tumbling towards the Autobots. "LOOK OUT! DECEPTICON!" Cliffjumper bellows as a rock almost falls on him. Okay, not really. But Prime is willing to bet his titanium torsion bars that Megatron's responsible for what's happening. Eventually, Prime's gambling addiction will take full hold, and all the Autobots will lose their titanium torsion bars betting on the slot machines at Monacus.
Back in Africa, while Megatron is gloating, Starscream is bossing Gears around and making him fill up energon cubes. Gears recognizes on some level that he shouldn't be okay with this. Megatron recognizes that the Autobots are probably on their way, and makes preparations for their arrival. (There's a brief moment when Megatron presses a switch on the solar needle and the controls start dancing. It's at a frame rate much higher than the standard 24 frames per second, though, so it looks really cool.)
So, the Autobots are STILL at the volcano base, looking at this gigantic green energy beam traveling from the Sun to the Earth and trying to figure out what's going on. It actually takes Teletraan I's explanation that someone is draining the Sun's energy to motivate Prime to finally head out and investigate. Cue the recycled footage of the Autobots driving off, with Blow-Out making his second appearance in the episode. We're nine minutes into the episode, so while there really isn't a dramatic cliffhanger, it's the end of a story beat, and that's good enough for a commercial break.
When we come back, even Starscream is beginning to notice that the Earth is unstable. Megatron is either already aware of what's happening or is blissfully ignorant of it, playing down Starscream's concerns as unimportant. This becomes a theme in the show, as Starscream frequently plays the role of conscientious objector, only for Megatron to dismiss his concerns (it happens again in "The Core," "Dinobot Island" parts 1 and 2, "Masquerade," etc. right up until The Transformers: the Movie). Starscream seems to be generally smarter than Megatron is during situations like this. Megatron is completely blind to flaws in his own plans. He should really listen to Starscream every once in a while. Yeah, sometimes he's just trying to knock Megatron off his pedestal, but sometimes he actually knows what he's talking about.
The Autobots make their way through a zebra stampede only to be stopped by some thick jungle growth. Prime orders Jazz and Sunstreaker to transform and "laser us a road," because Prime likes to verb words. Each of them climbs on either side of Prime's cab and begin to blast the trees clear. Now, compare this to "Microbots," when the Autobots encounter a similar situation. Brawn is the one to suggest shooting through the trees, but Prime replies with, "That's not our style, Brawn." Sometimes it's okay to shoot trees and sometimes it's not. Just depends on what kind of mood Prime is in that day.
Gears is still obediently filling energon cubes, but he can't help but make some cheerful digs at Megatron as he does so. Starscream decides this level of insolence is too much and fires on Gears. Megatron makes a half-hearted swipe at him, but at this point, he probably knows it's not going to do much good. The laser blast ricochets a few times, knocking Gears into Soundwave and causing Soundwave to let go of the energon cube he was holding. It hits the energy field surrounding the solar needle and is promptly vaporized into non-existence. This is some scary foreshadowing, but it's not played as a story event so it's easy to miss it entirely.
Megatron is incensed that Starscream could have caused some real damage to the solar needle. "One more mistake like that, and I'll permanently deactivate your bio-circuits!" he promises. Wait, doesn't the prefix bio- usually mean biological? As in, organic? We know that can't be right. (The Challenge of the GoBots cartoon eventually revealed that the GoBots weren't actually robots at all, but cyborgs with organic brains. This episode seems to be hinting at someting in that vein, but this is pretty much the only episode that ever suggests it.)
Starscream shifts the focus to Gears, demanding that he continue to fill energon cubes. "No problem, Starscream! I love being a slave! ...Or do I?" he asks, taking a longing look at the solar needle and the slot where his personality card is kept.
The Autobots proceed to drive to Africa (don't ask me how this works... either they used their water skis from "The Ultimate Doom" or they drove on the ocean floor). Windcharger shows up for the briefest of moments as they drive on, and never appears again in the episode. There's a chasm on the way, and everybody manages to jump over the cliff except for Cliffjumper. Wait, wrong episode. It's actually Bumblebee, this time, who gets about halfway over the ledge and then begins to falter. Wheeljack is forced to stop, run back for him, and grab him by the bumper just as he's about to fall. What a pal.
The Autobots finally arrive. Cliffjumper regrettably starts speaking in the wrong voice ("let's stop gabbin' and start blastin'!") even though he actually has the correct voice later in this very episode. I know they occasionally used replacement voice actors when the primary actor wasn't available, but Casey Kasem was obviously present for this recording session, so what's the deal? They used this voice for Cliffjumper in another episode, too, when he asked what the Instant Immobilizer could instantly immobilize. It's Don Messick doing the voice, and his only principle characters at this point in the show were Ratchet and Gears, so the only logical conclusion we can reach is that Wally Burr was drunk that day.
So, Bumblebee points out that they can't just rush in with guns blazing because Gears might get caught in the crossfire. Prime says that it's a justifiable risk if they can stop the Decepticons from raping the Sun. So, let's get this straight. Prime won't open fire when there are humans who could get hurt, but if it's just Gears is in the way, let's lock and load! It's a moot point, of course, because the solar needle is protected by an energy shield.
The Autobots all stand there and talk about how to get through the shield. Nobody seems to remember that Brawn can transform into a drill tank. Too bad they hadn't met Carly by this point in the show, because she would have remembered. Prime genuinely seems to think that the hole in the shield, through which the Sun's energy is entering, is the only weak spot. It's basically a suicide run, but Prime seems to be willing to go through with it. Ironhide stands there and argues with him. "I'm more expendible than you; I'll do it!" he proclaims. More expendible. So, Prime is expendible, but just not as much as Ironhide. Heh.
Cliffjumper, who had cleared the frog in his throat and is now speaking in the correct voice, seizes the opportunity while the two Big Reds are arguing and makes this his own personal solo mission. He drives... well, not into the hole through which the Sun's energy is going, but rather right into the side of the energy field. You had one job, Cliffjumper. A close examination of the scene where he gets zapped reveals some really cartoony-looking special effects. Like, lightning bolts and spiky energy bursts and little twinkly stars. It's like Cringer's transformation into Battle Cat.
Megatron seems genuinely shocked that the energy field is down. What's more, he's only got Soundwave and the three jets with him as back-up, probably because he wasn't expecting a fight at all. The Autobots, having just witnessed Cliffjumper's death, cheerfully march into the fray, shouting things like "Yeah, all right!" and "Get it on!" (I wish I was kidding about that, but I'm not.)
Cliffjumper has actually survived, however. He seems very confused about just what's going on ("Where am I? How'd I get here? What am I doing here?"), probably because the energy blast fried his memory chips, but at least he's functional. I wonder if he spent the rest of his life trying to remember all the things he'd forgotten. Since he's a red-colored Autobot, he probably had a girlfriend on Cybertron. Probably named Craterhopper or something like that. The fact that he never reunited with her in "The Search for Alpha Trion" probably means he totally forgot she existed.
There's so much going on here that I just don't understand. Ratchet is the first to point out that Cliffjumper is okay, but Prime ignores him like nothing's happened. Then, he warns the Autobots to be careful, because "those energy beams could be lethal." Uh, the ones that Cliffjumper just drove right into, you mean? The ones where, a moment ago, you were arguing with Ironhide about who was going to sacrifice himself by blocking with his own body? Those energy beams? Has Prime just gone completely senile?
Also, Autobots can't fly. They can soar through the air while making plane-like swooshing sounds, but they definitely can't fly.
There's an odd moment where Gears appears to be making a move to recover his energy chip, and while we hear Skywarp confront him to say, "Oh, no you don't!" it's actually Starscream who grabs him. Then, an instant later, it's Starscream who's got him pinned down. Sometimes, I just can't tell where the mistakes end or begin. Also, Gears subverts the old "look out behind you!" trick because there actually is somebody behind Starscream this time. He dismisses it as a "stupid trick" until Bumblebee nails him while in car mode and knocks him over. (Now, compare this to "Traitor!", only three episodes down the road. Cliffjumper is cornered by Starscream so he goes, "Now, Optimus Prime! Jump him!" and Starscream panics and turns around and goes, "Optimus Prime? Where?!" In real life, this is inconsistent character behavior because of so many different writers trying to portray the same characters. In-universe, I have no idea what to think. Did Starscream just eat a big bowl of Stupid-O's for breakfast that morning?)
So, Prime confronts Megatron, Megatron picks up Prime, and throws him into the energy field. We've already established that this means you either get vaporized instantly (energon cube), or it zaps you and then you walk away a little confused but just fine (Cliffjumper). Really, the Cliffjumper scene should have been handled differently, because the episode just promised us that Prime's going to be just fine. Zapping the energon cube was great, because it shows how the energy field is an instant death sentence. Cliffjumper's scene totally negates that. Honestly, they should have played it up like Cliffjumper had died, and then Prime is going to be next. At least then there would be some sense of suspense. Then, after the commercial, they could reveal that Cliffjumper had survived. Really, though, killing Cliffjumper would have been amazing. I know that such an idea would never fly in a 1980's childrens cartoon, but it sure would have raised the stakes. Besides, Hasbro was already probably at least in the preliminary stages of The Transformers: the Movie by this point, so I'm sure they already had their eye on killing off some of the 1984 characters.)
So, we come back for act three and are treated to a slightly different chain of events. This time, Gears thinks quickly and shoots the solar needle before Prime ever strikes the energy field. This appears to dissipate the energy field just enough that Prime can pass through it safely. A very close inspection of the scene will reveal that Prime's laser rifle instantly dematerializes, and is presumably shunted back into subspace. I guess you could argue that the energy field is actually destroying his gun, but given the nature of Transformer weaponry and the number of other examples of this happening, I tend to see this as another instance of subspace weaponry in effect.
While all this has been going on, the Autobots manage to have gotten the best of the Decepticon jets. Jazz has a gun trained on Thundercracker's back, while Ratchet has captured Skywarp and Sunstreaker has subdued Thundercracker. Megatron threatens to kill Prime if the Autobots don't drop their weapons. Now, keep in mind that Optimus already said that stopping the solar drain was more important than any other consideration. He was willing to let Gears, or Ironhide, or Cliffjumper, destroy themselves in the course of stopping Megatron's plan. Prime himself was evidently willing to block the solar drain with his own body, even if it killed him. And yet, Jazz and the others just throw their guns on the ground. Idiots.
While the Decepticons have their guns trained on the Autobots, Megatron tells Gears to repar the solar needle. He's ostensibly the only one among the group who isn't an active combatant and doesn't have a vested interest in the results of this encounter. I'm not really sure what the "rules" of Gears' servitude are. When Prime orders Gears to stop, shouldn't Gears be willing to serve Optimus just as willingly as Megatron? When Megatron counters that he asked for a favor, Gears acquiesces with the original request because "I wouldn't want you to feel bad." Regardless of how illogical this is, it's the set-up for the greatest line of the episode, as spoken by Ironhide: "What did you DO to him, you MONSTER? You turned him NICE!"
When it comes right down to it, though, Gears isn't actually being nice. He's still slinging insulting at Megatron, but he's just doing in a really cheerful way. So, he's just being insincere.
This is the part of the episode where Megatron is required to act incredibly stupid because the plot requires it. Prime asks for one final request before he is exterminated, and Megatron reluctantly agrees. Prime then asks Gears for a favor, and he doesn't even have to specify what. Gears complies with lightning speed, whipping out his gun and blasting the solar needle. Ridiculous.
"Decepticons, battle stations! OOO YOU HEAR ME!" cries Megatron. I get that voice actors were supposed to avoid enunciating their "t's" and "d's" too clearly because it created popping sounds on the audio track, but sometimes they took it to the other extreme.
Ratchet is a ninja in this episode. He karate-kicks Thundercracker like a blackbelt master, knocking the Decepticon about thirty feet through the air and into a tree. The other Autobots do pretty well, too. The Decepticons just havan't brought their "A" game today. One by one, they get beaten until they all run away, leaving only Megatron left. Prime demands that he shut down the solar needle, but Megatron launches into the sky instead.
The Sun, according to Prime, will be destroyed in less than a minute. Of course, it takes eight minutes for light from the Sun to reach the Earth, so aren't they already doomed? Or maybe once that minute is up, they won't feel the effects of the Sun's death for eight minutes' time. That's, like, another whole act. It's one whole episode of the Smurfs, at least.
Prime summons Wheeljack and Ratchet to the forefront. The main tower of the solar needle is about to collapse on Wheeljack, but Ratchet the Ninja Master comes to the rescue again, kicking a huge rock into the tower that knocks it off course. Ratchet gets his kicks from kicking! Are we sure he doesn't switch sides later and start going by the name Krok...?
There's a fun little moment when Ratchet starts to unscrew the bolts to the machine's control panel, one at a time, until Prime just shoves him aside and rips the entire panel away. I love scenes like this that are conveyed entirely through actions and no dialogue.
Everyone seems to agree that they need to yank a piece loose in order to shut down the machine, but Wheeljack and Ratchet both proclaim "disconnect that wire!" while each of them points to a different wire. For anyone who's keeping track, Prime chooses the one that Wheeljack was pointing to and yanks it free from its moorings. When it comes down to the choice of a medical doctor and the choice of a mad scientist, who would you go with? I'm not convinced Prime made the most sound decision, given the circumstances.
Optimus is making noises about destroying the solar needle when Gears interrupts. Politely, of course, because he doesn't want to come across as pushy or anything. Optimus extracts the circuit card, which is looking more and more like an audio cassette tape every time we see it. It's even got a little window with two spools visible inside. The screws are even in the right place. Yeah, they totally used a real cassette as the model for this thing.
Trailbreaker says that the Autobots had a vote, and elected to keep Gears the way he is. (Bumblebee calls him a "photovoltaic pussycat," which is ridiculous, because no seven-year-old kid watching this show could possibly know what a pussycat is.) Now, Trailbreaker is the Autobots' resident comedian, so it's possible he's just cracking a joke. Optimus seems to be playing along, considering the way he responds, "Well, as long as you all agree...!" Gears is the only one who seems to object to this idea. If they're all just razzing Gears, then it's one of the most subtle jokes in the entire show. You could really easily take what they're saying at face value. Nonetheless, Gears gets his cassette tape back.
Gears is back to normal. They use a really cartoony-looking Crazy Harry style detonator to destroy the machine. Gears just stands there and complains about his life while the Autobots transform and drive back towards the ocean floor. Gears finally notices that they're gone and frantically runs off after them. (His robot mode is almost entirely red but his truck mode is almost entirely blue. You don't notice it as much when we see him from the front, but when he's facing away from us and he transforms, the color-switching cheat required is painfully apparent.)
The ending of the episode really falls flat, though. I think it's because the music is pretty serious, so it's played as a serious moment. It's supposed to be mildly whimsical, so I think the "Parade" theme or the even more goofy "On Duty" theme would have worked better. Of course, the music library was still fairly limited by this point, so they might not have had a suitably comical theme available. There's nothing in the season one music library that I think would have even worked.
This isn't a favorite episode of mine. Gears has never been an interesting character to me, and doing the old switcheroo on his personality isn't particularly compelling storytelling. There are a lot of episodes where robots get reprogrammed, and it's so inconsistent. Sometimes it's permanent ("The Secret of Omega Supreme" and sometimes it's only temporary ("Attack of the Autobots"). Sometimes it completely changes a robot's personality (this episode) and sometimes it just changes his allegiance ("The Core"). I think this is the only story like this where somebody gets reprogrammed but doesn't really like the idea that he's been changed. That's kind of different, I guess.
Zob (almost wish I was back at work)
"Changing Gears" is episode #18 of the original Transformers cartoon, and only the second episode of season two (but still exclusively featuring season one characters). It was written by Larry Parr, a fairly prolific script writer who submitted stories to shows like the 1981 Spider-Man cartoon, the Smurfs, and two really bad episodes of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series. This was his only Transfomers story. (Given how it turned out, maybe that's for the best.)
So, the episode opens with some mine shaft workers striking it rich. They've unearthed so much gold that they come out of the mines with an entire mine car full of the stuff. The Decepticons show up and blast it to bits, thus disrupting the world economy as we know it. (Now, compare this to the scene from "Nightmare Planet" when Razorclaw is listening to the princess, and expresses incredible fascination with the prospect of being rewarded in gold for his services. Do the Decepticons place value upon gold, or don't they?)
Soundwave dispatches Laserbeak, and it's a line drawing identical to a scene used in one of the first-season episodes, "Roll for It." It's just footage of Soundwave ejecting a tape, so there's nothing necessarily wrong with Toei recycling some artwork elements when it's warranted. There's a lot more recycled artwork in this show than I think anybody realized, though. A while back, I was taking screen captures of characters' vehicle modes (most people focus on the robot modes, you know) and after I compiled them, I realized I had three or four screen shots of Bumblebee that were identical drawings, despite coming from different episodes and having different backgrounds. It's not technically recycled footage per se, because there are sometimes minor coloring differences, but it's clear the same line drawings were repurposed.
Ravage is also ejected, and the tapes capture two of the miners. Megatron shows up a few minutes later and wants to know how things are going. Why didn't he lead the mission in the first place? Why was he lagging behind? Was there an episode of As the Kitchen Sinks that he needed to finish? Anyway, Starscream threatens to destroy the last of the humans, but Megatron won't hear of it, knocking Starscream aside. "He must be permitted to call for help; it is my plan!" Megatron boasts. Curiouser and curiouser.
The Autobots receive the distress call and every Autobot in the base rushes to the control room... except for Gears, who takes his sweet time meandering to his post. Gears is the focus of this episode, so he's extra-grumpy in this one. Indeed, this is really the first episode to establish the long-standing tradition of showcase episodes—stories that focus predominantly on a single Autobot character, who will largely fade into the background afterwards. Gears had a few moments to shine during the first season, but nothing like this episode.
So, Gears had a lube job interrupted and he's not happy about it. When Ironhide offers a brief explanation about putting his duty before his maintenance, he replies, "That's easy for you to say! Your PULLEYS DON'T SQUEAK!" Bumblebee somersaults right over Gears' shoulders, and I'm not sure if this is supposed to demonstrate that Gears is in everybody's way, or just that Bumblebee is kind of a jerk sometimes. Anyway, Prime explains that a human mining operation is under attack and called for help. So far, it's a fairly cut-and-dried episode. Decepticons attack; Autobots respond.
Characters that Prime takes along with him include Blow-Out (yellow Cliffjumper), Mirage, Wheeljack, Sunstreaker, Trailbreaker, Jazz, Hound, Ratchet, and Ironhide... depending on what scene you're looking at. The show was really bad about maintaining a consistent Autobot roster throughout an entire episode, so there were occasional glitches in the line-up. For example, we don't actually see Gears with the group as they depart at all. Huffer is visible in a long shot of the convoy driving away. Bluestreak pops up as they arrive on scene. Brawn is visible as they arrive. Bumblebee shows up during the ensuing battle. All in all, it's just wildly inconsistent.
The Autobots arrive on scene to find the human miners trapped in an energy cage. Prime fires the first shot, knocking Megatron and Starscream to the ground. The fight is on. Megatron shoots the energy cage, prompting the workers to flee. Prime orders a ceasefire to prevent any harm coming to them. There's also some really hammy dialogue. "Give it up, Megatron! You've lost!" Prime says. "Your pathetic concern for humans demonstrates that you're weak, Optimus Prime! That is why I shall destroy you!" Megatron counters. I've read that script writers were on a tight deadline for this show and were required to produced finished scripts in 48 hours. Now I'm beginning to believe it. (Apparently Ron Friedman forgot to work his dialogue magic on this episode.)
Megatron produces a handheld gun, which in itself is a rarity. He uses it to energize some nearby boulders, compelling them to fly into Optimus and the others, knocking them down. (I choose to believe that this is the handheld gun that came with the G1 Megatron toy. Isn't it weird that a guy who turned into a gun would carry a gun?) Oddly, Megatron identifies Gears by name and chooses to target him specifically. He switches to gun mode and falls into Soundwave's waiting grasp, firing several shots directly in front of Gears until the ground is blasted away and Gears falls into the resulting gap. Starscream is about to blast Gears when Megatron backhands him again, for the second time in this episode alone. (It's also a recycled bit of animation.) Skywarp carries Gears away and Prime laments his capture as they fly off.
I've always thought that Gears got his name because of the shape of the toy's tires, which look a little like mechanical gears with interlocking teeth. (Brawn had the exact same tires, of course.) The name is fairly nondescript for a robot. If it was a G.I. Joe code name, one might infer he was a mechanic or an inventor. For a robot, the name Gears is like calling a character Wires or Circuits. Every robot has gears inside him, doesn't he?
So, now we get to the meat of Megatron's actual plan. The attack on the mining camp was just a ruse to draw the Autobots out of hiding and capture Gears. Of course, the Autobots chosen for any given mission are so random that it's likely he wouldn't have even been present at all. I guess Megatron would have to keep attacking random places until Gears finally showed up on a mission. Wouldn't it have just been easier to squirt some invisibility spray on himself, sneak into the base, and capture Gears directly?
Megatron has an invention called the solar needle, which has been constructed in Africa. (The episode later describes it as "the geographic center of Africa" which might place it somewhere in Zaire, which has been since renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo). Somehow, Gears seems to be the lynchpin to make the solar needle work. Gears is adamantly and steadfastly refusing to cooperate, until Starscream zaps him with a null ray, freezes him, and removes a circuit card from his chest. A sensor scan the Decepticons had conducted at some point previously, Megatron explains, revealed that Gears possessed the special component that Megatron required.
Gears suddenly undergoes a dramatic personality shift. He's actually smiling, now, and he's feeling very jovial and good-natured. Megatron makes a dismissive remark about how the circuit card had been modulating his personality. Once he inserts the circuit into the solar needle, it roars to life, sending a beam of energy into space and right into the heart of the Sun itself. The disruption is felt around the world... Italy, France, the United States. Thank goodness for convenient, familiar landmarks to serve as a visual shorthand.
We really need to look deeper at this. For one, it's an incredibly risky move for Megatron to build a machine that depends completely upon an component that he doesn't even possess yet. What if Gears had gone back to Cybertron on a mission? What if Starscream had killed him? The solar needle would be worthless. Of course, the episode dances around the issue of just why the solar needle needs this thing to work, or why Gears (and ONLY Gears) has one. I guess we need to look at Gears' actual job. His tech specs list his function as transport and reconnaissance. He's a truck. He's made to haul stuff. Maybe, MAYBE, he's got really good navigation circuits or something, and Megatron's using the circuit card as an astronavigation tool to track the Sun as the Earth moves through space. That's the best I can come up with, but it's a huge stretch. Also, it's not supported by the episode at all. Of course, no theory would be supported by the episode, because the episode offers zero explanation of what's happening here.
And then there's the matter of Gears' weird personality switch. Yes, yes, the episode title "Changing Gears" is awfully cute, because it normally refers to a car shifting to a different gear, but in this case, Gears is literally being changed. Ho, ho! Comedy gold! It's like somebody came up with the entire episode premise based on the title (a bit like "Sea Change," that way). If having this circuit card really fundamentally changes his personality so drastically, then we can conclude a couple of things. For one, it's not supposed to be there. It's not a factory component. Two, he must have some reason for wanting it there. He knows that it alters his personality and turns him into a total dickhead, but it's so important that he keeps it there anyway because whatever benefit it offers him is even more valuable to him than actually being liked on a personal level.
A while back I postulated the idea that Gears, without the circuit card, is much closer to a Quintesson product. Yup, it always comes back to the Quintessons. Seriously, though, he's an obedient and willing robot servant, which is exactly how the Quintessons would have marketed the consumer goods product line, back in the day. So, maybe the circuit card was an attempt at subverting the Quintesson programming? I don't really know how old Gears is. No references are ever made about his age, and aside from being grouchy, there's nothing about him to suggest that he's as old as Ironhide or Kup. With that in mind, though, he could be an early model. (We know Thundercracker remembers the Guardian Robots, and Blitzwing has faint memories of the Quintessons, and neither of them seems particularly old, either.)
At some point, it's possible the Autobots figured out that by introducing some new circuitry enabled them to reroute the Quintesson slave programming, enabling them to act freely instead of performing as slaves. Maybe the new circuitry changes their personalities so drastically, though, that not many Autobots use one. It's possible that in some cases, a new circuit card makes them insane or psychotic or murderous. Gears is merely an asshole, so he gets off fairly lightly, all things considered.
Really, though, you have to jump through so many hoops to explain just what's going on in this episode that you could write an entire fanfic about it. You shouldn't have to do this much work and have to pull from so many sources just to get this one story to come together.
By the way, this episode holds the special honor of being the very first episode I ever managed to record off the Sci-Fi Channel. A friend of mine had told me that they were airing old Transformers cartoons, and it was the first time I'd had the opportuntiy to see the show since it was taken off syndication in the late 1980's, so this was amazing news. I quickly filled up several VHS tapes and amassed a complete library of episodes. Even with this first episode, though, I knew something was dreadfully wrong. There were scenes missing! Had the master tapes been damaged somehow? Were they cutting moments to allow for more commercials? This episode ended up being one of the most egregious examples of poor editing. All of Gears' dialogue was mercilessly chopped up until the moment that he gets reprogrammed. So, literally his first line in the entire episode was now, "What happened? Suddenly I feel so good-natured!" Compared to what, exactly? You haven't said anything up until now!
Back at the Autobot base, Prime is determined to recover Gears. The solar flares create earthquakes that cause chunks of the volcano to come tumbling towards the Autobots. "LOOK OUT! DECEPTICON!" Cliffjumper bellows as a rock almost falls on him. Okay, not really. But Prime is willing to bet his titanium torsion bars that Megatron's responsible for what's happening. Eventually, Prime's gambling addiction will take full hold, and all the Autobots will lose their titanium torsion bars betting on the slot machines at Monacus.
Back in Africa, while Megatron is gloating, Starscream is bossing Gears around and making him fill up energon cubes. Gears recognizes on some level that he shouldn't be okay with this. Megatron recognizes that the Autobots are probably on their way, and makes preparations for their arrival. (There's a brief moment when Megatron presses a switch on the solar needle and the controls start dancing. It's at a frame rate much higher than the standard 24 frames per second, though, so it looks really cool.)
So, the Autobots are STILL at the volcano base, looking at this gigantic green energy beam traveling from the Sun to the Earth and trying to figure out what's going on. It actually takes Teletraan I's explanation that someone is draining the Sun's energy to motivate Prime to finally head out and investigate. Cue the recycled footage of the Autobots driving off, with Blow-Out making his second appearance in the episode. We're nine minutes into the episode, so while there really isn't a dramatic cliffhanger, it's the end of a story beat, and that's good enough for a commercial break.
When we come back, even Starscream is beginning to notice that the Earth is unstable. Megatron is either already aware of what's happening or is blissfully ignorant of it, playing down Starscream's concerns as unimportant. This becomes a theme in the show, as Starscream frequently plays the role of conscientious objector, only for Megatron to dismiss his concerns (it happens again in "The Core," "Dinobot Island" parts 1 and 2, "Masquerade," etc. right up until The Transformers: the Movie). Starscream seems to be generally smarter than Megatron is during situations like this. Megatron is completely blind to flaws in his own plans. He should really listen to Starscream every once in a while. Yeah, sometimes he's just trying to knock Megatron off his pedestal, but sometimes he actually knows what he's talking about.
The Autobots make their way through a zebra stampede only to be stopped by some thick jungle growth. Prime orders Jazz and Sunstreaker to transform and "laser us a road," because Prime likes to verb words. Each of them climbs on either side of Prime's cab and begin to blast the trees clear. Now, compare this to "Microbots," when the Autobots encounter a similar situation. Brawn is the one to suggest shooting through the trees, but Prime replies with, "That's not our style, Brawn." Sometimes it's okay to shoot trees and sometimes it's not. Just depends on what kind of mood Prime is in that day.
Gears is still obediently filling energon cubes, but he can't help but make some cheerful digs at Megatron as he does so. Starscream decides this level of insolence is too much and fires on Gears. Megatron makes a half-hearted swipe at him, but at this point, he probably knows it's not going to do much good. The laser blast ricochets a few times, knocking Gears into Soundwave and causing Soundwave to let go of the energon cube he was holding. It hits the energy field surrounding the solar needle and is promptly vaporized into non-existence. This is some scary foreshadowing, but it's not played as a story event so it's easy to miss it entirely.
Megatron is incensed that Starscream could have caused some real damage to the solar needle. "One more mistake like that, and I'll permanently deactivate your bio-circuits!" he promises. Wait, doesn't the prefix bio- usually mean biological? As in, organic? We know that can't be right. (The Challenge of the GoBots cartoon eventually revealed that the GoBots weren't actually robots at all, but cyborgs with organic brains. This episode seems to be hinting at someting in that vein, but this is pretty much the only episode that ever suggests it.)
Starscream shifts the focus to Gears, demanding that he continue to fill energon cubes. "No problem, Starscream! I love being a slave! ...Or do I?" he asks, taking a longing look at the solar needle and the slot where his personality card is kept.
The Autobots proceed to drive to Africa (don't ask me how this works... either they used their water skis from "The Ultimate Doom" or they drove on the ocean floor). Windcharger shows up for the briefest of moments as they drive on, and never appears again in the episode. There's a chasm on the way, and everybody manages to jump over the cliff except for Cliffjumper. Wait, wrong episode. It's actually Bumblebee, this time, who gets about halfway over the ledge and then begins to falter. Wheeljack is forced to stop, run back for him, and grab him by the bumper just as he's about to fall. What a pal.
The Autobots finally arrive. Cliffjumper regrettably starts speaking in the wrong voice ("let's stop gabbin' and start blastin'!") even though he actually has the correct voice later in this very episode. I know they occasionally used replacement voice actors when the primary actor wasn't available, but Casey Kasem was obviously present for this recording session, so what's the deal? They used this voice for Cliffjumper in another episode, too, when he asked what the Instant Immobilizer could instantly immobilize. It's Don Messick doing the voice, and his only principle characters at this point in the show were Ratchet and Gears, so the only logical conclusion we can reach is that Wally Burr was drunk that day.
So, Bumblebee points out that they can't just rush in with guns blazing because Gears might get caught in the crossfire. Prime says that it's a justifiable risk if they can stop the Decepticons from raping the Sun. So, let's get this straight. Prime won't open fire when there are humans who could get hurt, but if it's just Gears is in the way, let's lock and load! It's a moot point, of course, because the solar needle is protected by an energy shield.
The Autobots all stand there and talk about how to get through the shield. Nobody seems to remember that Brawn can transform into a drill tank. Too bad they hadn't met Carly by this point in the show, because she would have remembered. Prime genuinely seems to think that the hole in the shield, through which the Sun's energy is entering, is the only weak spot. It's basically a suicide run, but Prime seems to be willing to go through with it. Ironhide stands there and argues with him. "I'm more expendible than you; I'll do it!" he proclaims. More expendible. So, Prime is expendible, but just not as much as Ironhide. Heh.
Cliffjumper, who had cleared the frog in his throat and is now speaking in the correct voice, seizes the opportunity while the two Big Reds are arguing and makes this his own personal solo mission. He drives... well, not into the hole through which the Sun's energy is going, but rather right into the side of the energy field. You had one job, Cliffjumper. A close examination of the scene where he gets zapped reveals some really cartoony-looking special effects. Like, lightning bolts and spiky energy bursts and little twinkly stars. It's like Cringer's transformation into Battle Cat.
Megatron seems genuinely shocked that the energy field is down. What's more, he's only got Soundwave and the three jets with him as back-up, probably because he wasn't expecting a fight at all. The Autobots, having just witnessed Cliffjumper's death, cheerfully march into the fray, shouting things like "Yeah, all right!" and "Get it on!" (I wish I was kidding about that, but I'm not.)
Cliffjumper has actually survived, however. He seems very confused about just what's going on ("Where am I? How'd I get here? What am I doing here?"), probably because the energy blast fried his memory chips, but at least he's functional. I wonder if he spent the rest of his life trying to remember all the things he'd forgotten. Since he's a red-colored Autobot, he probably had a girlfriend on Cybertron. Probably named Craterhopper or something like that. The fact that he never reunited with her in "The Search for Alpha Trion" probably means he totally forgot she existed.
There's so much going on here that I just don't understand. Ratchet is the first to point out that Cliffjumper is okay, but Prime ignores him like nothing's happened. Then, he warns the Autobots to be careful, because "those energy beams could be lethal." Uh, the ones that Cliffjumper just drove right into, you mean? The ones where, a moment ago, you were arguing with Ironhide about who was going to sacrifice himself by blocking with his own body? Those energy beams? Has Prime just gone completely senile?
Also, Autobots can't fly. They can soar through the air while making plane-like swooshing sounds, but they definitely can't fly.
There's an odd moment where Gears appears to be making a move to recover his energy chip, and while we hear Skywarp confront him to say, "Oh, no you don't!" it's actually Starscream who grabs him. Then, an instant later, it's Starscream who's got him pinned down. Sometimes, I just can't tell where the mistakes end or begin. Also, Gears subverts the old "look out behind you!" trick because there actually is somebody behind Starscream this time. He dismisses it as a "stupid trick" until Bumblebee nails him while in car mode and knocks him over. (Now, compare this to "Traitor!", only three episodes down the road. Cliffjumper is cornered by Starscream so he goes, "Now, Optimus Prime! Jump him!" and Starscream panics and turns around and goes, "Optimus Prime? Where?!" In real life, this is inconsistent character behavior because of so many different writers trying to portray the same characters. In-universe, I have no idea what to think. Did Starscream just eat a big bowl of Stupid-O's for breakfast that morning?)
So, Prime confronts Megatron, Megatron picks up Prime, and throws him into the energy field. We've already established that this means you either get vaporized instantly (energon cube), or it zaps you and then you walk away a little confused but just fine (Cliffjumper). Really, the Cliffjumper scene should have been handled differently, because the episode just promised us that Prime's going to be just fine. Zapping the energon cube was great, because it shows how the energy field is an instant death sentence. Cliffjumper's scene totally negates that. Honestly, they should have played it up like Cliffjumper had died, and then Prime is going to be next. At least then there would be some sense of suspense. Then, after the commercial, they could reveal that Cliffjumper had survived. Really, though, killing Cliffjumper would have been amazing. I know that such an idea would never fly in a 1980's childrens cartoon, but it sure would have raised the stakes. Besides, Hasbro was already probably at least in the preliminary stages of The Transformers: the Movie by this point, so I'm sure they already had their eye on killing off some of the 1984 characters.)
So, we come back for act three and are treated to a slightly different chain of events. This time, Gears thinks quickly and shoots the solar needle before Prime ever strikes the energy field. This appears to dissipate the energy field just enough that Prime can pass through it safely. A very close inspection of the scene will reveal that Prime's laser rifle instantly dematerializes, and is presumably shunted back into subspace. I guess you could argue that the energy field is actually destroying his gun, but given the nature of Transformer weaponry and the number of other examples of this happening, I tend to see this as another instance of subspace weaponry in effect.
While all this has been going on, the Autobots manage to have gotten the best of the Decepticon jets. Jazz has a gun trained on Thundercracker's back, while Ratchet has captured Skywarp and Sunstreaker has subdued Thundercracker. Megatron threatens to kill Prime if the Autobots don't drop their weapons. Now, keep in mind that Optimus already said that stopping the solar drain was more important than any other consideration. He was willing to let Gears, or Ironhide, or Cliffjumper, destroy themselves in the course of stopping Megatron's plan. Prime himself was evidently willing to block the solar drain with his own body, even if it killed him. And yet, Jazz and the others just throw their guns on the ground. Idiots.
While the Decepticons have their guns trained on the Autobots, Megatron tells Gears to repar the solar needle. He's ostensibly the only one among the group who isn't an active combatant and doesn't have a vested interest in the results of this encounter. I'm not really sure what the "rules" of Gears' servitude are. When Prime orders Gears to stop, shouldn't Gears be willing to serve Optimus just as willingly as Megatron? When Megatron counters that he asked for a favor, Gears acquiesces with the original request because "I wouldn't want you to feel bad." Regardless of how illogical this is, it's the set-up for the greatest line of the episode, as spoken by Ironhide: "What did you DO to him, you MONSTER? You turned him NICE!"
When it comes right down to it, though, Gears isn't actually being nice. He's still slinging insulting at Megatron, but he's just doing in a really cheerful way. So, he's just being insincere.
This is the part of the episode where Megatron is required to act incredibly stupid because the plot requires it. Prime asks for one final request before he is exterminated, and Megatron reluctantly agrees. Prime then asks Gears for a favor, and he doesn't even have to specify what. Gears complies with lightning speed, whipping out his gun and blasting the solar needle. Ridiculous.
"Decepticons, battle stations! OOO YOU HEAR ME!" cries Megatron. I get that voice actors were supposed to avoid enunciating their "t's" and "d's" too clearly because it created popping sounds on the audio track, but sometimes they took it to the other extreme.
Ratchet is a ninja in this episode. He karate-kicks Thundercracker like a blackbelt master, knocking the Decepticon about thirty feet through the air and into a tree. The other Autobots do pretty well, too. The Decepticons just havan't brought their "A" game today. One by one, they get beaten until they all run away, leaving only Megatron left. Prime demands that he shut down the solar needle, but Megatron launches into the sky instead.
The Sun, according to Prime, will be destroyed in less than a minute. Of course, it takes eight minutes for light from the Sun to reach the Earth, so aren't they already doomed? Or maybe once that minute is up, they won't feel the effects of the Sun's death for eight minutes' time. That's, like, another whole act. It's one whole episode of the Smurfs, at least.
Prime summons Wheeljack and Ratchet to the forefront. The main tower of the solar needle is about to collapse on Wheeljack, but Ratchet the Ninja Master comes to the rescue again, kicking a huge rock into the tower that knocks it off course. Ratchet gets his kicks from kicking! Are we sure he doesn't switch sides later and start going by the name Krok...?
There's a fun little moment when Ratchet starts to unscrew the bolts to the machine's control panel, one at a time, until Prime just shoves him aside and rips the entire panel away. I love scenes like this that are conveyed entirely through actions and no dialogue.
Everyone seems to agree that they need to yank a piece loose in order to shut down the machine, but Wheeljack and Ratchet both proclaim "disconnect that wire!" while each of them points to a different wire. For anyone who's keeping track, Prime chooses the one that Wheeljack was pointing to and yanks it free from its moorings. When it comes down to the choice of a medical doctor and the choice of a mad scientist, who would you go with? I'm not convinced Prime made the most sound decision, given the circumstances.
Optimus is making noises about destroying the solar needle when Gears interrupts. Politely, of course, because he doesn't want to come across as pushy or anything. Optimus extracts the circuit card, which is looking more and more like an audio cassette tape every time we see it. It's even got a little window with two spools visible inside. The screws are even in the right place. Yeah, they totally used a real cassette as the model for this thing.
Trailbreaker says that the Autobots had a vote, and elected to keep Gears the way he is. (Bumblebee calls him a "photovoltaic pussycat," which is ridiculous, because no seven-year-old kid watching this show could possibly know what a pussycat is.) Now, Trailbreaker is the Autobots' resident comedian, so it's possible he's just cracking a joke. Optimus seems to be playing along, considering the way he responds, "Well, as long as you all agree...!" Gears is the only one who seems to object to this idea. If they're all just razzing Gears, then it's one of the most subtle jokes in the entire show. You could really easily take what they're saying at face value. Nonetheless, Gears gets his cassette tape back.
Gears is back to normal. They use a really cartoony-looking Crazy Harry style detonator to destroy the machine. Gears just stands there and complains about his life while the Autobots transform and drive back towards the ocean floor. Gears finally notices that they're gone and frantically runs off after them. (His robot mode is almost entirely red but his truck mode is almost entirely blue. You don't notice it as much when we see him from the front, but when he's facing away from us and he transforms, the color-switching cheat required is painfully apparent.)
The ending of the episode really falls flat, though. I think it's because the music is pretty serious, so it's played as a serious moment. It's supposed to be mildly whimsical, so I think the "Parade" theme or the even more goofy "On Duty" theme would have worked better. Of course, the music library was still fairly limited by this point, so they might not have had a suitably comical theme available. There's nothing in the season one music library that I think would have even worked.
This isn't a favorite episode of mine. Gears has never been an interesting character to me, and doing the old switcheroo on his personality isn't particularly compelling storytelling. There are a lot of episodes where robots get reprogrammed, and it's so inconsistent. Sometimes it's permanent ("The Secret of Omega Supreme" and sometimes it's only temporary ("Attack of the Autobots"). Sometimes it completely changes a robot's personality (this episode) and sometimes it just changes his allegiance ("The Core"). I think this is the only story like this where somebody gets reprogrammed but doesn't really like the idea that he's been changed. That's kind of different, I guess.
Zob (almost wish I was back at work)
Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats
Jun 17, 2017, 4:00:08 PM6/17/17
to
On Thursday, June 15, 2017 at 5:42:25 PM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:
> Got sick right before vacation, and now I'm on vacation. So, naturally, I've been much busier today than I would have been if I'd just been at work. Vacations seriously do take so much effort. Good thing I wrote this review weeks ago!
Good thing. I had to scramble, but some people get stuff done ahead of time.
> Got sick right before vacation, and now I'm on vacation. So, naturally, I've been much busier today than I would have been if I'd just been at work. Vacations seriously do take so much effort. Good thing I wrote this review weeks ago!
> "Changing Gears" is episode #18 of the original Transformers cartoon, and only the second episode of season two (but still exclusively featuring season one characters). It was written by Larry Parr, a fairly prolific script writer who submitted stories to shows like the 1981 Spider-Man cartoon, the Smurfs, and two really bad episodes of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series. This was his only Transfomers story. (Given how it turned out, maybe that's for the best.)
> So, the episode opens with some mine shaft workers striking it rich. They've unearthed so much gold that they come out of the mines with an entire mine car full of the stuff.
> Ravage is also ejected, and the tapes capture two of the miners. Megatron shows up a few minutes later and wants to know how things are going. Why didn't he lead the mission in the first place?
> So, Gears had a lube job interrupted and he's not happy about it. When Ironhide offers a brief explanation about putting his duty before his maintenance, he replies, "That's easy for you to say! Your PULLEYS DON'T SQUEAK!" Bumblebee somersaults right over Gears' shoulders, and I'm not sure if this is supposed to demonstrate that Gears is in everybody's way, or just that Bumblebee is kind of a jerk sometimes.
> Characters that Prime takes along with him include Blow-Out (yellow Cliffjumper), Mirage, Wheeljack, Sunstreaker, Trailbreaker, Jazz, Hound, Ratchet, and Ironhide... depending on what scene you're looking at. The show was really bad about maintaining a consistent Autobot roster throughout an entire episode, so there were occasional glitches in the line-up. For example, we don't actually see Gears with the group as they depart at all. Huffer is visible in a long shot of the convoy driving away. Bluestreak pops up as they arrive on scene. Brawn is visible as they arrive. Bumblebee shows up during the ensuing battle. All in all, it's just wildly inconsistent.
> The Autobots arrive on scene to find the human miners trapped in an energy cage. Prime fires the first shot, knocking Megatron and Starscream to the ground. The fight is on. Megatron shoots the energy cage, prompting the workers to flee. Prime orders a ceasefire to prevent any harm coming to them. There's also some really hammy dialogue. "Give it up, Megatron! You've lost!" Prime says. "Your pathetic concern for humans demonstrates that you're weak, Optimus Prime! That is why I shall destroy you!" Megatron counters.
> I've always thought that Gears got his name because of the shape of the toy's tires, which look a little like mechanical gears with interlocking teeth. (Brawn had the exact same tires, of course.) The name is fairly nondescript for a robot. If it was a G.I. Joe code name, one might infer he was a mechanic or an inventor. For a robot, the name Gears is like calling a character Wires or Circuits. Every robot has gears inside him, doesn't he?
> So, now we get to the meat of Megatron's actual plan. The attack on the mining camp was just a ruse to draw the Autobots out of hiding and capture Gears. Of course, the Autobots chosen for any given mission are so random that it's likely he wouldn't have even been present at all. I guess Megatron would have to keep attacking random places until Gears finally showed up on a mission. Wouldn't it have just been easier to squirt some invisibility spray on himself, sneak into the base, and capture Gears directly?
> We really need to look deeper at this. For one, it's an incredibly risky move for Megatron to build a machine that depends completely upon an component that he doesn't even possess yet. What if Gears had gone back to Cybertron on a mission? What if Starscream had killed him? The solar needle would be worthless. Of course, the episode dances around the issue of just why the solar needle needs this thing to work, or why Gears (and ONLY Gears) has one.
> I guess we need to look at Gears' actual job. His tech specs list his function as transport and reconnaissance. He's a truck. He's made to haul stuff. Maybe, MAYBE, he's got really good navigation circuits or something, and Megatron's using the circuit card as an astronavigation tool to track the Sun as the Earth moves through space. That's the best I can come up with, but it's a huge stretch. Also, it's not supported by the episode at all. Of course, no theory would be supported by the episode, because the episode offers zero explanation of what's happening here.
I am reminded of an explanation of why Plank's constant is the exact right value to allow matter to coalesce -- if it was some other value, we wouldn't be around to ask the question at all. It's just a random happenstance that is a precondition for the story of humans asking why it is that value.
More likely, Gears was constructed 10,754,183 years ago, using a standard set of components that changed before and after that. There were probably thousands of Transformers with this set of components, but there are now dozens of Transformers left that anyone can find.
Megatron probably could build a replacement component for his Solar Needle, but it would take a while, and he is not particularly patient.
> And then there's the matter of Gears' weird personality switch. Yes, yes, the episode title "Changing Gears" is awfully cute, because it normally refers to a car shifting to a different gear, but in this case, Gears is literally being changed. Ho, ho! Comedy gold! It's like somebody came up with the entire episode premise based on the title (a bit like "Sea Change," that way).
> If having this circuit card really fundamentally changes his personality so drastically, then we can conclude a couple of things. For one, it's not supposed to be there. It's not a factory component.
And, if it were the add-on piece that made him more than a Quintesson slave, then all the others would need them too -- so some inference against it.
You are also assuming that the others don't have personality circuits at all. That's reasonable for Shockwave and Skids, but many of the others have personalities. It seems more likely that the others have personality circuits, but that they are different. They may *all* be different from each other.
> Two, he must have some reason for wanting it there. He knows that it alters his personality and turns him into a total dickhead, but it's so important that he keeps it there anyway because whatever benefit it offers him is even more valuable to him than actually being liked on a personal level.
> A while back I postulated the idea that Gears, without the circuit card, is much closer to a Quintesson product. Yup, it always comes back to the Quintessons. Seriously, though, he's an obedient and willing robot servant, which is exactly how the Quintessons would have marketed the consumer goods product line, back in the day.
If anything, the personality circuits would be a marketing gimmick: "Robot servents, now with genuine people personalities!" (and no mention that the personalities suck)
> So, maybe the circuit card was an attempt at subverting the Quintesson programming? I don't really know how old Gears is. No references are ever made about his age, and aside from being grouchy, there's nothing about him to suggest that he's as old as Ironhide or Kup. With that in mind, though, he could be an early model. (We know Thundercracker remembers the Guardian Robots, and Blitzwing has faint memories of the Quintessons, and neither of them seems particularly old, either.)
On the other hand, the Quintessons have their transforming Sharkticons.
I have three possible interpretations of this:
1. Transformation was developed independently by the Transformers, and by the Quintessons. And by Unicron.
2. The Quintesson products could transform, but this functionality was either not-enabled or the Transformers simply forgot about it, and then rediscovered it. (I think the only way the Transformers could not remember their war for independence would be that the Quintessons had wiped their memories at some point while trying to take Cybertron back)
3. The Transformers developed transformation, and the Quintessons discovered it, and started adding it to their Sharkticons.
Any of these are possible, and there are probably others. I lean towards option 2.
> At some point, it's possible the Autobots figured out that by introducing some new circuitry enabled them to reroute the Quintesson slave programming, enabling them to act freely instead of performing as slaves. Maybe the new circuitry changes their personalities so drastically, though, that not many Autobots use one. It's possible that in some cases, a new circuit card makes them insane or psychotic or murderous. Gears is merely an asshole, so he gets off fairly lightly, all things considered.
> Back in Africa, while Megatron is gloating, Starscream is bossing Gears around and making him fill up energon cubes. Gears recognizes on some level that he shouldn't be okay with this. Megatron recognizes that the Autobots are probably on their way, and makes preparations for their arrival. (There's a brief moment when Megatron presses a switch on the solar needle and the controls start dancing. It's at a frame rate much higher than the standard 24 frames per second, though, so it looks really cool.)
> When we come back, even Starscream is beginning to notice that the Earth is unstable. Megatron is either already aware of what's happening or is blissfully ignorant of it, playing down Starscream's concerns as unimportant. This becomes a theme in the show, as Starscream frequently plays the role of conscientious objector, only for Megatron to dismiss his concerns (it happens again in "The Core," "Dinobot Island" parts 1 and 2, "Masquerade," etc. right up until The Transformers: the Movie). Starscream seems to be generally smarter than Megatron is during situations like this. Megatron is completely blind to flaws in his own plans. He should really listen to Starscream every once in a while. Yeah, sometimes he's just trying to knock Megatron off his pedestal, but sometimes he actually knows what he's talking about.
> The Autobots make their way through a zebra stampede only to be stopped by some thick jungle growth. Prime orders Jazz and Sunstreaker to transform and "laser us a road," because Prime likes to verb words. Each of them climbs on either side of Prime's cab and begin to blast the trees clear. Now, compare this to "Microbots," when the Autobots encounter a similar situation. Brawn is the one to suggest shooting through the trees, but Prime replies with, "That's not our style, Brawn." Sometimes it's okay to shoot trees and sometimes it's not. Just depends on what kind of mood Prime is in that day.
> Megatron is incensed that Starscream could have caused some real damage to the solar needle. "One more mistake like that, and I'll permanently deactivate your bio-circuits!" he promises. Wait, doesn't the prefix bio- usually mean biological? As in, organic? We know that can't be right. (The Challenge of the GoBots cartoon eventually revealed that the GoBots weren't actually robots at all, but cyborgs with organic brains. This episode seems to be hinting at someting in that vein, but this is pretty much the only episode that ever suggests it.)
biological function emulation circuits?
Lots of possibilities.
> Starscream shifts the focus to Gears, demanding that he continue to fill energon cubes. "No problem, Starscream! I love being a slave! ...Or do I?" he asks, taking a longing look at the solar needle and the slot where his personality card is kept.
What did Megatron put Blitzwing's personality circuit into?
> So, Bumblebee points out that they can't just rush in with guns blazing because Gears might get caught in the crossfire. Prime says that it's a justifiable risk if they can stop the Decepticons from raping the Sun. So, let's get this straight. Prime won't open fire when there are humans who could get hurt, but if it's just Gears is in the way, let's lock and load! It's a moot point, of course, because the solar needle is protected by an energy shield.
> The Autobots all stand there and talk about how to get through the shield. Nobody seems to remember that Brawn can transform into a drill tank. Too bad they hadn't met Carly by this point in the show, because she would have remembered. Prime genuinely seems to think that the hole in the shield, through which the Sun's energy is entering, is the only weak spot. It's basically a suicide run, but Prime seems to be willing to go through with it. Ironhide stands there and argues with him. "I'm more expendible than you; I'll do it!" he proclaims. More expendible. So, Prime is expendible, but just not as much as Ironhide. Heh.
> Cliffjumper, who had cleared the frog in his throat and is now speaking in the correct voice, seizes the opportunity while the two Big Reds are arguing and makes this his own personal solo mission. He drives... well, not into the hole through which the Sun's energy is going, but rather right into the side of the energy field. You had one job, Cliffjumper. A close examination of the scene where he gets zapped reveals some really cartoony-looking special effects. Like, lightning bolts and spiky energy bursts and little twinkly stars. It's like Cringer's transformation into Battle Cat.
> Megatron seems genuinely shocked that the energy field is down. What's more, he's only got Soundwave and the three jets with him as back-up, probably because he wasn't expecting a fight at all. The Autobots, having just witnessed Cliffjumper's death, cheerfully march into the fray, shouting things like "Yeah, all right!" and "Get it on!" (I wish I was kidding about that, but I'm not.)
> Cliffjumper has actually survived, however. He seems very confused about just what's going on ("Where am I? How'd I get here? What am I doing here?"), probably because the energy blast fried his memory chips, but at least he's functional. I wonder if he spent the rest of his life trying to remember all the things he'd forgotten. Since he's a red-colored Autobot, he probably had a girlfriend on Cybertron. Probably named Craterhopper or something like that. The fact that he never reunited with her in "The Search for Alpha Trion" probably means he totally forgot she existed.
> There's an odd moment where Gears appears to be making a move to recover his energy chip, and while we hear Skywarp confront him to say, "Oh, no you don't!" it's actually Starscream who grabs him. Then, an instant later, it's Starscream who's got him pinned down. Sometimes, I just can't tell where the mistakes end or begin. Also, Gears subverts the old "look out behind you!" trick because there actually is somebody behind Starscream this time. He dismisses it as a "stupid trick" until Bumblebee nails him while in car mode and knocks him over. (Now, compare this to "Traitor!", only three episodes down the road. Cliffjumper is cornered by Starscream so he goes, "Now, Optimus Prime! Jump him!" and Starscream panics and turns around and goes, "Optimus Prime? Where?!" In real life, this is inconsistent character behavior because of so many different writers trying to portray the same characters. In-universe, I have no idea what to think. Did Starscream just eat a big bowl of Stupid-O's for breakfast that morning?)
> So, Prime confronts Megatron, Megatron picks up Prime, and throws him into the energy field. We've already established that this means you either get vaporized instantly (energon cube), or it zaps you and then you walk away a little confused but just fine (Cliffjumper). Really, the Cliffjumper scene should have been handled differently, because the episode just promised us that Prime's going to be just fine. Zapping the energon cube was great, because it shows how the energy field is an instant death sentence. Cliffjumper's scene totally negates that. Honestly, they should have played it up like Cliffjumper had died, and then Prime is going to be next. At least then there would be some sense of suspense. Then, after the commercial, they could reveal that Cliffjumper had survived.
> While all this has been going on, the Autobots manage to have gotten the best of the Decepticon jets. Jazz has a gun trained on Thundercracker's back, while Ratchet has captured Skywarp and Sunstreaker has subdued Thundercracker. Megatron threatens to kill Prime if the Autobots don't drop their weapons. Now, keep in mind that Optimus already said that stopping the solar drain was more important than any other consideration. He was willing to let Gears, or Ironhide, or Cliffjumper, destroy themselves in the course of stopping Megatron's plan. Prime himself was evidently willing to block the solar drain with his own body, even if it killed him. And yet, Jazz and the others just throw their guns on the ground. Idiots.
> While the Decepticons have their guns trained on the Autobots, Megatron tells Gears to repar the solar needle. He's ostensibly the only one among the group who isn't an active combatant and doesn't have a vested interest in the results of this encounter. I'm not really sure what the "rules" of Gears' servitude are. When Prime orders Gears to stop, shouldn't Gears be willing to serve Optimus just as willingly as Megatron? When Megatron counters that he asked for a favor, Gears acquiesces with the original request because "I wouldn't want you to feel bad." Regardless of how illogical this is, it's the set-up for the greatest line of the episode, as spoken by Ironhide: "What did you DO to him, you MONSTER? You turned him NICE!"
>
> When it comes right down to it, though, Gears isn't actually being nice. He's still slinging insulting at Megatron, but he's just doing in a really cheerful way. So, he's just being insincere.
> This is the part of the episode where Megatron is required to act incredibly stupid because the plot requires it. Prime asks for one final request before he is exterminated, and Megatron reluctantly agrees. Prime then asks Gears for a favor, and he doesn't even have to specify what. Gears complies with lightning speed, whipping out his gun and blasting the solar needle. Ridiculous.
Megatron loves a good show. A final request is part of that, so I can see this fitting his character.
> The Sun, according to Prime, will be destroyed in less than a minute. Of course, it takes eight minutes for light from the Sun to reach the Earth, so aren't they already doomed? Or maybe once that minute is up, they won't feel the effects of the Sun's death for eight minutes' time. That's, like, another whole act. It's one whole episode of the Smurfs, at least.
> Prime summons Wheeljack and Ratchet to the forefront. The main tower of the solar needle is about to collapse on Wheeljack, but Ratchet the Ninja Master comes to the rescue again, kicking a huge rock into the tower that knocks it off course. Ratchet gets his kicks from kicking! Are we sure he doesn't switch sides later and start going by the name Krok...?
> Everyone seems to agree that they need to yank a piece loose in order to shut down the machine, but Wheeljack and Ratchet both proclaim "disconnect that wire!" while each of them points to a different wire. For anyone who's keeping track, Prime chooses the one that Wheeljack was pointing to and yanks it free from its moorings. When it comes down to the choice of a medical doctor and the choice of a mad scientist, who would you go with? I'm not convinced Prime made the most sound decision, given the circumstances.
> Trailbreaker says that the Autobots had a vote, and elected to keep Gears the way he is. (Bumblebee calls him a "photovoltaic pussycat," which is ridiculous, because no seven-year-old kid watching this show could possibly know what a pussycat is.) Now, Trailbreaker is the Autobots' resident comedian, so it's possible he's just cracking a joke. Optimus seems to be playing along, considering the way he responds, "Well, as long as you all agree...!" Gears is the only one who seems to object to this idea. If they're all just razzing Gears, then it's one of the most subtle jokes in the entire show. You could really easily take what they're saying at face value. Nonetheless, Gears gets his cassette tape back.
> This isn't a favorite episode of mine. Gears has never been an interesting character to me, and doing the old switcheroo on his personality isn't particularly compelling storytelling. There are a lot of episodes where robots get reprogrammed, and it's so inconsistent. Sometimes it's permanent ("The Secret of Omega Supreme" and sometimes it's only temporary ("Attack of the Autobots"). Sometimes it completely changes a robot's personality (this episode) and sometimes it just changes his allegiance ("The Core"). I think this is the only story like this where somebody gets reprogrammed but doesn't really like the idea that he's been changed. That's kind of different, I guess.
> Zob (almost wish I was back at work)
Cappeca
Jun 20, 2017, 11:05:53 AM6/20/17
to
This is one of a few episodes I remember not only watching but talking about it with friends as a kid. Here in Brazil only the mini-bots had been released, so whenever those guys were protagonists in an episode, it was a big deal for everyone. This is not a favorite, but it has some nostalgic value for me.
Em quinta-feira, 15 de junho de 2017 21:42:25 UTC-3, Zobovor escreveu:
> Soundwave dispatches Laserbeak, and it's a line drawing identical to a scene used in one of the first-season episodes, "Roll for It." It's just footage of Soundwave ejecting a tape, so there's nothing necessarily wrong with Toei recycling some artwork elements when it's warranted.
>
My friend always made that pose whenever he wanted to impersonate Soundwave. His "eject" movement was full of cringe, straight out of a super sentai episode. "See? See? He doesn't have to press his own eject button"
> Why didn't he lead the mission in the first place? Why was he lagging behind? Was there an episode of As the Kitchen Sinks that he needed to finish? Anyway, Starscream threatens to destroy the last of the humans, but Megatron won't hear of it, knocking Starscream aside. "He must be permitted to call for help; it is my plan!" Megatron boasts. Curiouser and curiouser.
>
I believe some episodes were written as an RPG session. This is an episode that's totally "playable" with the toys - in a way that Enter the Nightbird, for example, had never been. I can imagine a Hasbro executive going into a meeting room with the cartoon production staff, handing them some assorted toys and a few publicity papers, picking up Gears and saying "this is the star of this episode, you gotta make a story about him. GO!" and they started playing around, writing notes as they did. "They kidnap him!" "Because he has a special chip" "A chip that could DESTROY THE SUN!!!!!" I find this episode to be quite action oriented, with all the jumping and fighting.
> Bumblebee somersaults right over Gears' shoulders
I don't remember how it is in the original american version, but in the brazilian dub he says a very laconic "You're late", which makes this scene pretty funny.
>
> There's also some really hammy dialogue. "Give it up, Megatron! You've lost!" Prime says. "Your pathetic concern for humans demonstrates that you're weak, Optimus Prime! That is why I shall destroy you!" Megatron counters. I've read that script writers were on a tight deadline for this show and were required to produced finished scripts in 48 hours. Now I'm beginning to believe it. (Apparently Ron Friedman forgot to work his dialogue magic on this episode.)
This is the kinda dialog you spurt out as you play with toys. These writers were high, and playing. They'd be bragging about their jobs on facebook if there was a facebook back then.
> And then there's the matter of Gears' weird personality switch. Yes, yes, the episode title "Changing Gears" is awfully cute, because it normally refers to a car shifting to a different gear, but in this case, Gears is literally being changed. Ho, ho! Comedy gold!
The pun did not survive translation to portuguese (Mudando as Marchas = Changing the gears of a car transmission), and there's no pace change in the episode to justify the name as being a speed shift of any sort. It makes no sense.
On a side note, although brazilian voice acting was quite good during the 80s, a few elderly actors had problems pronouncing english words, which made it difficult for 8 years old kids to know the name of the characters. For instance, they made "Dinobots" sound like from "Deenobots" to "Dynabolts", with all the variations in between.
>
> Each of them climbs on either side of Prime's cab and begin to blast the trees clear. Now, compare this to "Microbots," when the Autobots encounter a similar situation. Brawn is the one to suggest shooting through the trees, but Prime replies with, "That's not our style, Brawn." Sometimes it's okay to shoot trees and sometimes it's not. Just depends on what kind of mood Prime is in that day.
This scene made me very uncomfortable, even back in the day. You don't destroy trees just like that. Considering how the destruction of the rain forest has been a constant subject in the brazilian media for as far as I can remember, this was a shock. Not only for me, I might say, but for all kids watching the cartoon. What was the point of it, anyway? That's not a toy feature - or a character one - you'd want to showcase.
> The Autobots proceed to drive to Africa (don't ask me how this works...
That's something that always made me go "huh". Being a car is not very effective for large distances, like the ones covered by, say, a JET FIGHTER! The autobot response time could take days!
> Cliffjumper, who had cleared the frog in his throat and is now speaking in the correct voice, seizes the opportunity while the two Big Reds are arguing and makes this his own personal solo mission.
Cliffjumper is a hero.
>
> Really, though, killing Cliffjumper would have been amazing. I know that such an idea would never fly in a 1980's childrens cartoon, but it sure would have raised the stakes.
They did kill Cliffjumper in Transformers Prime. They also brought him back as a Zombie and killed him again. So there.
> "What did you DO to him, you MONSTER? You turned him NICE!"
Yes, it's one of the best quotes of all the episodes.
>
> One by one, they get beaten until they all run away, leaving only Megatron left. Prime demands that he shut down the solar needle, but Megatron launches into the sky instead.
I like how Megatron insists on his crazy plan right until the last second. There were times when Megatron was reasonable once things went downhill, but I always thought reasonable behavior made him soft as a villain. This stubborn Megatron makes me mad.
>
> The Sun, according to Prime, will be destroyed in less than a minute.
I never bought that, even as a kid. If the sun was about to be destroyed in less than a minute, there was absolutely NO WAY the process could be reverted at all.
> There's a fun little moment when Ratchet starts to unscrew the bolts to the machine's control panel, one at a time, until Prime just shoves him aside and rips the entire panel away. I love scenes like this that are conveyed entirely through actions and no dialogue.
It says a lot about Ratchet and Prime. Small bits of action like this can show more character development than simple dialog. This is what I was talking about when I said this episode is full of action.
>
> Trailbreaker says that the Autobots had a vote, and elected to keep Gears the way he is. (Bumblebee calls him a "photovoltaic pussycat," which is ridiculous, because no seven-year-old kid watching this show could possibly know what a pussycat is.) Now, Trailbreaker is the Autobots' resident comedian, so it's possible he's just cracking a joke. Optimus seems to be playing along, considering the way he responds, "Well, as long as you all agree...!" Gears is the only one who seems to object to this idea. If they're all just razzing Gears, then it's one of the most subtle jokes in the entire show. You could really easily take what they're saying at face value. Nonetheless, Gears gets his cassette tape back.
>
> Gears is back to normal. They use a really cartoony-looking Crazy Harry style detonator to destroy the machine. Gears just stands there and complains about his life while the Autobots transform and drive back towards the ocean floor. Gears finally notices that they're gone and frantically runs off after them.
The name of the episode should be "Bullying Gears"
Em quinta-feira, 15 de junho de 2017 21:42:25 UTC-3, Zobovor escreveu:
> Soundwave dispatches Laserbeak, and it's a line drawing identical to a scene used in one of the first-season episodes, "Roll for It." It's just footage of Soundwave ejecting a tape, so there's nothing necessarily wrong with Toei recycling some artwork elements when it's warranted.
>
> Why didn't he lead the mission in the first place? Why was he lagging behind? Was there an episode of As the Kitchen Sinks that he needed to finish? Anyway, Starscream threatens to destroy the last of the humans, but Megatron won't hear of it, knocking Starscream aside. "He must be permitted to call for help; it is my plan!" Megatron boasts. Curiouser and curiouser.
>
> Bumblebee somersaults right over Gears' shoulders
>
> There's also some really hammy dialogue. "Give it up, Megatron! You've lost!" Prime says. "Your pathetic concern for humans demonstrates that you're weak, Optimus Prime! That is why I shall destroy you!" Megatron counters. I've read that script writers were on a tight deadline for this show and were required to produced finished scripts in 48 hours. Now I'm beginning to believe it. (Apparently Ron Friedman forgot to work his dialogue magic on this episode.)
> And then there's the matter of Gears' weird personality switch. Yes, yes, the episode title "Changing Gears" is awfully cute, because it normally refers to a car shifting to a different gear, but in this case, Gears is literally being changed. Ho, ho! Comedy gold!
On a side note, although brazilian voice acting was quite good during the 80s, a few elderly actors had problems pronouncing english words, which made it difficult for 8 years old kids to know the name of the characters. For instance, they made "Dinobots" sound like from "Deenobots" to "Dynabolts", with all the variations in between.
>
> Each of them climbs on either side of Prime's cab and begin to blast the trees clear. Now, compare this to "Microbots," when the Autobots encounter a similar situation. Brawn is the one to suggest shooting through the trees, but Prime replies with, "That's not our style, Brawn." Sometimes it's okay to shoot trees and sometimes it's not. Just depends on what kind of mood Prime is in that day.
> The Autobots proceed to drive to Africa (don't ask me how this works...
> Cliffjumper, who had cleared the frog in his throat and is now speaking in the correct voice, seizes the opportunity while the two Big Reds are arguing and makes this his own personal solo mission.
>
> Really, though, killing Cliffjumper would have been amazing. I know that such an idea would never fly in a 1980's childrens cartoon, but it sure would have raised the stakes.
> "What did you DO to him, you MONSTER? You turned him NICE!"
>
> One by one, they get beaten until they all run away, leaving only Megatron left. Prime demands that he shut down the solar needle, but Megatron launches into the sky instead.
>
> The Sun, according to Prime, will be destroyed in less than a minute.
> There's a fun little moment when Ratchet starts to unscrew the bolts to the machine's control panel, one at a time, until Prime just shoves him aside and rips the entire panel away. I love scenes like this that are conveyed entirely through actions and no dialogue.
>
> Trailbreaker says that the Autobots had a vote, and elected to keep Gears the way he is. (Bumblebee calls him a "photovoltaic pussycat," which is ridiculous, because no seven-year-old kid watching this show could possibly know what a pussycat is.) Now, Trailbreaker is the Autobots' resident comedian, so it's possible he's just cracking a joke. Optimus seems to be playing along, considering the way he responds, "Well, as long as you all agree...!" Gears is the only one who seems to object to this idea. If they're all just razzing Gears, then it's one of the most subtle jokes in the entire show. You could really easily take what they're saying at face value. Nonetheless, Gears gets his cassette tape back.
>
> Gears is back to normal. They use a really cartoony-looking Crazy Harry style detonator to destroy the machine. Gears just stands there and complains about his life while the Autobots transform and drive back towards the ocean floor. Gears finally notices that they're gone and frantically runs off after them.
Zobovor
Jun 20, 2017, 12:59:06 PM6/20/17
to
On Tuesday, June 20, 2017 at 9:05:53 AM UTC-6, Cappeca wrote:
> This is one of a few episodes I remember not only watching but talking about
> it with friends as a kid. Here in Brazil only the mini-bots had been
> released, so whenever those guys were protagonists in an episode, it was a
> big deal for everyone.
I never looked at it quite like that. Ever since I was old enough to realize the show was a toy commercial, I always wondered why they would devote entire episodes to the Mini Autobot characters when there were much bigger, more expensive toys to advertise. When you stop and think about it, they really did get an impressive amount of screen time.
> This is one of a few episodes I remember not only watching but talking about
> it with friends as a kid. Here in Brazil only the mini-bots had been
> released, so whenever those guys were protagonists in an episode, it was a
> big deal for everyone.
> I believe some episodes were written as an RPG session. This is an episode
> that's totally "playable" with the toys - in a way that Enter the Nightbird,
> for example, had never been.
> I can imagine a Hasbro executive going into a meeting room with the cartoon
> production staff, handing them some assorted toys and a few publicity papers,
> picking up Gears and saying "this is the star of this episode, you gotta make
> a story about him. GO!" and they started playing around, writing notes as
> they did. "They kidnap him!" "Because he has a special chip" "A chip that
> could DESTROY THE SUN!!!!!"
> I don't remember how it is in the original american version, but in the
> brazilian dub he says a very laconic "You're late", which makes this scene
> pretty funny.
> This is the kinda dialog you spurt out as you play with toys. These writers
> were high, and playing.
> On a side note, although brazilian voice acting was quite good during the
> 80s, a few elderly actors had problems pronouncing english words, which made
> it difficult for 8 years old kids to know the name of the characters. For
> instance, they made "Dinobots" sound like from "Deenobots" to "Dynabolts",
> with all the variations in between.
> This scene made me very uncomfortable, even back in the day. You don't
> destroy trees just like that. Considering how the destruction of the rain
> forest has been a constant subject in the brazilian media for as far as I can
> remember, this was a shock. Not only for me, I might say, but for all kids
> watching the cartoon. What was the point of it, anyway?
What's weird is that this show sends so many mixed messages, as a result of so many different writers working on it. There's no unified theme. Natural resources were a hot topic in the 1980's, which is why, I think, they decided to make stealing resources one of the villainous activities of the Decepticons. When it came to the environment, though, there was less of an over-reaching theme. You had episodes like "The Golden Lagoon" which very clearly stated that the destruction of wilderness was horrible, but then you had episodes like "The Secret of Omega Supreme" where Omega knocks over trees just to get from point a to point b. Not even fighting Decepticons, just walking around.
> I like how Megatron insists on his crazy plan right until the last second.
> There were times when Megatron was reasonable once things went downhill, but
> I always thought reasonable behavior made him soft as a villain. This
> stubborn Megatron makes me mad.
If the Autobots hadn't stopped the solar needle in this episode, though, Megatron would have caused the Sun to explode and he would have been destroyed along with everything else on Earth. He didn't even seem to have an escape plan in this episode.
> The name of the episode should be "Bullying Gears"
Zob (got Gears as a gift and was annoyed that the price sticker was right on top of his tech specs card)
Cappeca
Jun 21, 2017, 1:38:32 AM6/21/17
to
Em terça-feira, 20 de junho de 2017 13:59:06 UTC-3, Zobovor escreveu:
>
> > I don't remember how it is in the original american version, but in the
> > brazilian dub he says a very laconic "You're late", which makes this scene
> > pretty funny.
>
> In the U.S. version he's responding to Gears' remark about his pulleys squeaking. "It's not your squeaking that's the problem... it's your squawking!" is what Bumblebee says. It's a forced play on words that doesn't really work for me. I think I like the Brazilian version better.
Sorry, my mistake. I'm rewatching the episode right now, and Bumblebee says it just like the original american version (minus the word game, which was not possible in portuguese). "You're late" comes from Transport to Oblivion, and it's actually Gears that delivers the line, to Bumblebee!
>
> > I don't remember how it is in the original american version, but in the
> > brazilian dub he says a very laconic "You're late", which makes this scene
> > pretty funny.
>
> In the U.S. version he's responding to Gears' remark about his pulleys squeaking. "It's not your squeaking that's the problem... it's your squawking!" is what Bumblebee says. It's a forced play on words that doesn't really work for me. I think I like the Brazilian version better.
I did watch the episode around the time I posted the link to the brazilian version, a few weeks ago. And I swear I heard it like I told. The whole scene has been wrong in my head all this time!
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