On Saturday, April 14, 2018 at 9:43:55 PM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:
> "War of the Dinobots" is episode 10 of the original Transformers cartoon, and first aired on November 24, 1984. Written by Donald F. Glut, it was the second in a series of many Dinobot episodes written by him. This episode is significant in that it introduces Snarl and Swoop, finally completing the Dinobot character roster.
Slash would disagree with you. I like Slash, and can happily accept her into the Dinobots. Sometime after "The Search for Alpha Trion," Wheeljack must have thought "I have an idea, what about a female Dinobot..."
> As our story opens, Chip Chase is apparently working at a planetarium, and has been there long enough that he's on a first-name basis with the other scientists there.
Astronomical observatories, like football teams, are last-name only places. It was Mr. Jeff.
> Optimus Prime (with Spike in tow) arrives with Hound, Wheeljack, Ironhide, and Ratchet. It's a fairly small response team and it makes you wonder what the other Autobots are all busy doing. Chip has made all sorts of mathematical calculations to determine that the meteor will strike the Earth at precisely "some time tonight,"
Chip does get the location right. I'm thinking the Heisenberg Uncertainly Principle is involved. Chip is able to calculate the exact position and direction of the meteor, but not the speed.
Also, in the Transformers universe, the Earth is in a constant position and does not rotate.
> Conveniently enough, the meteor is poised to hit an abandoned city,
Is the city abandoned, or is this just the slums? How many American cities have been abandoned? Even Detroit is not abandoned.
> Chip expresses gratitude towards Optimus Prime for allowing him to watch the meteorite landing. Spike suggests that they name the meteor after Chip, embarrasses himself horribly by suggesting the name "Meteorini Chiparoni." Because, as we all know, all space meteors are filled with delicious Chef Boyardee pasta.
Spike is such an idiot. I have no idea why Chip then starts dressing up in women's clothing and trying to seduce him...
> Out of the blue, Prime announces that he's happy with the Dinobots' performance (I guess he's forgiven that whole business when they tried to demolish Teletraan I), and he even wants to add a couple of new ones to the roster. Naturally, Spike and Chip want to help out, because the Autobots are kind of dumb when they don't have humans at the forefront of all their affairs.
It's true. That should have been the theme of the Michael Bay movies -- two warring factions, amazingly well armed, arrive on Earth and bring their war. Also, they are really, really stupid. Humanity is at risk because of stupid robots.
> Before you know it, though, Chip is not only heading up the operation himself, but he's even choosing what types of dinosaurs will be used as the basis for their designs. Teletraan somehow produces footage of a live stegosaurus, which Chip decides will be used for the first new Dinobot.
I don't know if it is a live stegosaurus, or a cartoon stegosaurus. I kind of like the idea that Teletraan-1 found a kid's show about dinosaurs. It explains Grimlock's posture, and Sludge being a mythical animal.
> He suggests giving the Autobots "a little extra flying power" and proposes a pteranodon as the second new addition to the team (technically, pterosaurs were not dinosaurs). Ratchet and Wheeljack are only too happy to let Chip do the thinking for them, like good little consumer slave robots, and agree to start construction immediately.
Yeah, I think the Autobots are kind of dumb too.
> I generally dislike the Dinobots. Their painfully slow, stilted vocal deliveries are a chore to sit through. Surely there must have been a more effective way to convey them as being not-particularly-smart. The Dreadnoks from G.I. Joe weren't rocket scientists, but they didn't all have to talk like Cookie Monster. (I think they must have emphasized this aspect of the Dinobots less heavily in later episodes, because they certainly don't take forever to belt out a sentence by the time of, say, "Dark Awakening" or "Call of the Primitives.")
I like them. But I do wish they were dumb in a different way. Too literal, rather than just talking slowly with poor grammar.
> Megatron demands their answer, and as act one draws to a close, the Dinobots have happily concluded that it's time to kill Optimus Prime. This in itself is kind of interesting. There have been countless plots of Megatron's that required brainwashing or reprogramming on some level—he did it to Bumblebee ("Transport to Oblivion"), most of the Autobots ("Attack of the Autobots"), Omega Supreme ("The Secret of Omega Supreme"), etc. This is the first time, and I think the only time, that Megatron's just using psychology to get what he wants. He's manipulating the Dinobots without tampering with their circuitry at all. What's worse, it works like gangbusters. This says something really scary about the way the Dinobots have been programmed. They really do just do whatever somebody tells them to. They're computers, like Teletraan I or Vector Sigma. They have no morals and no sense of right or wrong. They're a little stubborn, to be sure, but all Megatron had to do to circumvent that was appeal to their primitive nature.
Maybe the meteorite affects them? Or maybe they just want to kill Optimus.
> Sparkplug puzzles over blueprints that are labeled "OUTLINE PLAN DESGE" until Chip explains to him that all the plans are written in horribly mangled Engrish.
Well, that's one explanation.
> Ironhide is operating a crane, clumsily trying to stack an unpainted Dinobot upper torso on top of the completed lower torso. We know Grapple isn't around yet, but where's Hauler? Did they have to build this crane just so they could build the Dinobots?
The crane is probably sentient, and unable to transform, stuck in life as a crane.
> Wheeljack realizes his meteor fragment is unstable, and summons Prime and Chip and Trailbreaker. Right as it's about to explode, Trailbreaker starts spinning around like a ballerina, which somehow generates a forcefield to encapsulate the meteor fragment and contain the explosion. Now the Autobots know the entire meteor will eventually do the same thing.
Such a weird scene.
> Wheeljack and Ratchet invite Bluestreak, Prowl, Sideswipe, and Ironhide to the forefront, and Ratchet beckons them in a sinister voice, "Stop the Dinobots... IF YOU CAN! DUN DUN DUNNNN!" The Autobots are remarkably ineffective. The moment kind of feels like filler, since it's a fight just for the sake of having a fight, with no stakes and the winner largely irrelevant. "In a real fight, we'd have creamed 'em... maybe," says Bluestreak when it's all over.
I think it shows how poorly the Dinobots are treated, and that they might be right to rebel.
> Back at the volcano, Wheeljack detects the meteor at its new location and realizes it's about to explode. Without a word, Swoop and Snarl launch into action. It's not obvious unless you watch the scene in slo-mo, but Swoop actually picks up Snarl as they rocket away.
There were words. Wheeljack didn't think they could get any Autobots there in time, and Spike suggests sending the Dinobots. Presumably because they were knew and he didn't feel attached to them yet.
> It's a full-on Dinobot rampage until Prime observes the meteor has reached a critical point, and bravely makes a run for Grimlock, who is standing right next to it. He knocks Grimlock out of its path only an instant before it detonates. In the aftermath of the explosion, Grimlock is positively incensed. "You, Megatron, trick us. Make us fight good leader, Optimus Prime! Prime risk own life to save us! BAD MEGATRON!" You can tell that Megatron is a little scared. "Decepticons, retreat—now! Quick! At once!"
This meteorite really wasn't all that powerful. Optimus was basically fine.
> The original Rhino DVD release of this episode, as with all the first-season installments, was made from an early, incomplete print of the episode before it was sent back to Toei for corrections. Some of the more egregious mistakes include Slag's dialogue coming out of Sludge's mouth, a scene where the Dinobots change to dinosaur mode instead of reverting to robot mode, Swoop carrying a robot colored like Swoop, and numerous instances of Starscream being colored like Thundercracker. There's even a bizarre moment where Starscream is wearing finger gloves. As incomplete episodes go, it's not the worst, but every mistake that isn't present in the broadcast version is positively jarring. (It's bad enough watching the show with all the extra added sound effects that Rhino dubbed in.)
The finger gloves were awesome.
> As early installments go, this isn't a bad episode. I like that an attempt was made to work the Dinobots into the show gradually instead of just throwing them all into the show at once and going, "Look, kids! New toys!" I also like that the episode had not one, but two hero-versus-hero battles. When the Autobots fight the Decepticons, it's a given that we're supposed to root for the good guys, who will inevitably win. It's less obvious who we're supposed to want to emerge victorious when Prime is forced to fight the Dinobots, or when the new Dinobots attack the old ones. After all, the original three were never reprogrammed, so they were never truly evil; just misguided and confused. It's nice when an episode manages to shake up your expectations a little.
Yeah, I'm still wondering if Spike could talk them into a rampage. I think the answer is clearly yes.