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Cartoon Viewing Club: Zob's Thoughts on "Five Faces of Darkness" parts 1-5

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Zobovor

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May 14, 2015, 11:06:39 PM5/14/15
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"Five Faces of Darkness" parts 1-5 originally aired the week of September 15-19th, 1986, a little more than a month after The Transformers: the Movie premiered in theaters. This was clearly a calculated move on the part of Sunbow, as the voice recording for "Five Faces of Darkness" was actually completed before the movie. When Toei was working on the film (and some beautiful 1986 episodes of G.I. Joe), much of the third season of Transformers was farmed out to the lower-quality Korean studio AKOM. The dip in visual quality is overt and disappointing; while the unrefined footage in some ways fits the mood of the third season, it pales in quality to the general appearance of the show for its first two seasons.

All five episodes were scripted by Flint Dille, who was working from a preproduction script for The Transformers: the Movie rather than basing the story directly on the finished movie. He previously wrote "Prime Target" and numerous scripts for G.I. Joe (including "The Gamemaster," which itself was very similar to "Prime Target" in concept).

"Five Faces of Darkness" gets its own unique title sequence. What fans generally regard as the third-season title song actually made its debut during the late days of season two, and it was retained for the 1986-87 season. The title sequence is very story-specific, showcasing elements like the rockaroid spacecraft; Galvatron emerging from the plasma on planet Thraal; Trypticon facing off against Metroplex; and Springer getting sucked up into the elemental processing unit on planet Goo. (This title sequence has been inconsistently retained for home video release; on the Shout Factory DVD's, it's shown only for the beginning of "Five Faces of Darkness" parts 3 and 5, and uses the soundtrack for the regular third-season title sequence (you can hear the sound effects associated with Unicron's head, Ratbat swooping through space, Blitzwing firing at the camera, etc.)

FIVE FACES OF DARKNESS PART 1

Our story opens with a brief recap of the events from the end of The Transformers: the Movie, only with second-season musical themes and sound effects. It's a strange juxtaposition. No new music was written for the third season; Robert J. Walsh had been commissioned in 1985 to produce music for the Sunbow library that would be shared between G.I. Joe and Transformers, and it was the same case in 1986 to a lesser degree (one of the new 1986 themes shows up in "The Killing Jar"). Transformers wouldn't get a musical overhaul until midway through the third season, when the themes written for G.I. Joe: the Movie would be appropriated and used for the series.

Oddly, the footage from the movie seems to go out of its way to reestablish that the blessed few survivors of the film from 1984 include Cliffjumper, Jazz, and Bumblebee. Despite this, only Bumblebee would go on to enjoy any additional speaking roles; Casey Kasem left the show shortly after this episode, and Scatman Crothers passed away around the same time. (Jazz gets a somewhat prominent role in a later Galactic Olympics race, but in a non-speaking capacity.) Along the same lines, the Insecticons show up early in the episode, but this is arguably a mistake (they were turned into Sweeps in the movie) and, except for a very strange flub in "Fight or Flee," they never appear in the show after this mini-series.

We learn that the Decepticons have gone from ruling Cybertron to having been kicked off the planet completely in the wake of Unicron's attack, and they're living on the ruins of a planet called Chaar. No episode ever comes out directly and states this, but it's clear there was a former civilization dwelling there. There are damaged buildings and other evidence of a previous colony of some sort. I would love to presume that the Decepticons slaughtered the former Chaarizards before taking residence there, but given what we learn about them in this episode, that seems unlikely. This episode seems to take its cues strongly from an abandoned concept from an early Transformers: the Movie script. The creations of Unicron demand an energon offering, and the other Decepticons express concern that this will exhaust their remaining stockpile. If it had been fully realized, that would have segued nicely into the premise from this episode of the Decepticons being totally out of energy.

Astrotrain returns from an energy-scouting mission; the other Decepticons mob him and fight amongst themselves, while he can barely transform back to robot mode. He's just laying there, with the front half of a train in place of legs, his fingers inches away from the precious life-giving energon that he himself collected. You have to feel a little sorry for the guy. The Constructicons combine, but Bonecrusher lacks the power to link up correctly, and Devastator is forced to fend off a competing Menasor with a single arm.

There are lots of strange voice acting decisions in the first two minutes alone. Sometimes actors were asked to perform various grunts and groans so that they could be archived as sound effects and inserted in the appropriate spots. Some sound editor found some Jack Angel cries that they liked a lot, and proceeded to use them for Bonecrusher, and then for Astrotrain, and then again for Menasor, and yet again for Kickback. That's just lazy editing, right there. Also, Rege Cordic's voice isn't correctly modified when he speaks as Menasor. He's the correct voice actor for the character, but without the character's voice being artificially lowered, he just sounds like a Quintesson.

Overshadowing this, though, is the abysmally poor animation. This is perhaps one of the worst-looking Transformers episodes ever produced, and it's especially jarring when superimposed against the occasional Transformers: the Movie footage. "Five Faces of Darkness" has more animation mistakes than any other five episodes combined, bar none. Some of the more egregious mistakes from this particular sequence include Devastator being cut into tiny pieces by Menasor's sword before the parts spontaneously reassembling, and Menasor only being a couple of heads taller than Astrotrain. (I don't think the Korean studio got the Transformers size comparison chart at all. There are far too many discrepancies.)

We do get one interesting nod to the past, when Astrotrain laments, "In the days of Megatron it was not like this!" and Cyclonus quickly corrects, "You mean Galvatron!" before the Sweeps launch into a heartfelt volley of hail Galvatrons. "Well, they were the same guy," Astrotrain grumbles. This is the only in-series acknowledgement that Megatron has been removed from the series and Galvatron has taken his place--a necessity, perhaps, for viewers who had missed the movie. (Japan didn't get the movie until well after the third season had aired. Talk about confusing!)

Elsewhere, the Autobots are hosting what basically amounts to the Space Olympics. This is just about the only indication of what the Autobots would be doing with their time if they didn't have Decepticons to worry about. (In later episodes, we'll see that they also like to meddle in interplanetary affairs and force other life forms to make peace.) Rodimus Prime is visibly less-than-enthusiastic about the whole affair, a fact lampshaded by Warpath and Bumblebee, who are watching the games remotely from Autobot City.

Anybody familiar with the character voices from The Transformers: the Movie would find the third season rather jarring upon first viewing. All the celebrity voice actors got replaced, which unfortunately accounts for almost all of the main cast for season three. The regular TV actors had previously voiced the characters in Hasbro toy commercials, so in truth they were just resuming their regular roles. I was ten years old when I first saw this episode, and on some level I recognized that the celebrity voice cast was not sustainable. Still, it took me time to adjust to the new voices. When I first heard Ultra Magnus speaking during the Sharkticon invasion, I recall thinking that it wasn't a bad Kup voice. Then, of course, Kup opened his mouth and sounded absolutely nothing like Lionel Stander.

Some of the new actors chosen were already series mainstays. Jack Angel was brought in fairly early in season two for Smokescreen and Ramjet and Astrotrain, and he probably began voicing Ultra Magnus in toy commercials shortly thereafter. Frank Welker, of course, was a natural choice for Galvatron as he had previously performed Megatron. (He also did Wreck-Gar in the toy commercials, but Tony Pope apparently did a better Eric Idle impression.) Dick Gautier was brought on board for G.I. Joe in 1986 to play Serpentor; before he was cast in the role, Ted Schwartz was originally chosen as Rodimus Prime (and he can still be heard in some recap/preview clips for this mini-series). John Stephenson previously played Thundercracker and Windcharger and Alpha Trion before taking the role of Kup. Neil Ross was Slag and Bonecrusher and Hook before he took the role of Springer. Roger C. Carmel was probably cast as Cyclonus first, but we heard him on the show first as Motormaster and Bruticus. John Moschitta and Stan Jones remained the only actors introduced in the movie who got to keep their regular-series characters (Blurr and Scourge).

A major plot point of the mini-series is that the transformation cog for Autobot City, which has been retconned into a Transformer named Metroplex (the terms are used synonymously), has been damaged, leaving the city in a vulnerable state. Blurr and Wheelie are both assigned to play delivery boy, escorting the cog safely from Cybertron to Earth. We can only hope that they both die a horrible death before they get there, because they're two of the most annoyingly gimmicky Autobots ever created.

Back at the Space Olympics, a group of shadowy assailants arrive and, under cover of smoke from the Olympic torch, capture Kup and Ultra Magnus as well as Spike (whose appearance finally establishes Carly as the mother of his spawn, as if there were any doubt). We'll learn later that they're Sharkticons, but they're not drawn all chubby and plump like the Sharkticons usually look. (Keeping their identity a mystery became an even bigger plot point in the fifth-season presentation, when Tommy Kennedy goes through this whole big laundry list of who the kidnappers could, and could not, be.) Han and Leia... I mean, Springer and Arcee go to action, with Springer blowing the torch to smithereens while Arcee blasts away at the unknown assailants. In the aftermath, the Autobots ponder the reason for the abductions. Optimus Prime would have said something like, "I don't know why, but I don't think the Decepticons are behind this," but Rodimus just up and accuses them, declaring a quarantine on the entire planet. When a mystery ship emerges and blasts off, however, Springer and Arcee are quick to pursue.

Elsewhere, Blurr and Wheelie observe the head of Unicron, still in orbit around Cybertron as per the final show of the movie. What they don't notice is that the Decepticons have infiltrated the maybe-deactivated head and are rummaging through Unicron's memory files to find a clue as to what direction Galvatron went after Rodimus Prime chucked him into space. Say what you like about this mini-series, but that's one amazing nod to continuity. Galvatron doesn't just spontaneously show up one day to lead the Decepticons again; the episode acknowledges that he was sent hurtling towards parts unknown, so the Decepticons have to actively track him down. (Even Star Wars never did that. Darth Vader is hurtling through space at the end of A New Hope, but he's right back in charge of things by the time of The Empire Strikes Back.) We're treated to yet another brief snippet from The Transformers: the Movie, as if to remind us how horrible AKOM's animation is by comparison.

Cyclonus makes some calculations and, amazingly, Scourge is able to just stare into space and "spy the planet" in question. Man, and you thought Bumblebee had good vision! Sure enough, we get a glimpse of Galvatron's arm poking out of the plasma on planet Thraal, giving the Decepticons something to go on. Also, from millions of miles away, Scourge can apparently hear Galvatron softly moaning.

Elsewhere, we get a scene in Carbombya that doesn't really do much for this episode, specifically, but establishes the setting for future episodes. Abdul Fakkadi is a clear allegory for Muammar Gaddafi (whose name could be spelled Kaddafi, making the name of this character from this episode a thinly-veiled anagram). The character is inexcusably racist (and he's the reason Casey Kasem, who is of Arab descent, left the show) but in some ways he's a product of his time. In 1942, during World War II, Superman urged comic book readers to "slap a Jap" and Donald Duck got all up in der Fuehrer's face. In the 1980's, Libya was public enemy number one. Gaddafi was openly and vehemently anti-American, and after terrorists blew up a night club, Ronald Reagan ordered an air strike to bomb the crap out of the country. Transformers is hardly the only culprit in this regard; G.I. Joe had an episode where a bankrupt Destro is trying to sell old Cobra jet fighters to military leaders of other countries, and Kaddafi himself makes a cameo.

Anyway, Fakkadi is hiding two Decepticon refugees, Dirge and Ramjet, and evidently Blaster and his buddy Outback have gotten wind of this. Outback uses an admittedly fake gizmo called a "Decepticon detector" to lure them out of hiding; when their escape attempt fails, the Autobots interrogate them for the location of planet Chaar. Rodimus confirms the existence of the planet: "Our charts don't show any planets in that sector... no, wait, here it is. I thought it was a smudge on the screen." Say what you want about this mini-series; that's some snappy writing. (Dan Gilvezan takes his turn as Outback in this episode; Gregg Berger will take over for the character's other speaking role in "The Quintesson Journal," during which he's also paired with Blaster. Also... man, Outback's animation model sure is a literal interpretation of the toy. It's just about as un-humanoid as you can get without being Slammer or Brunt.)

Perceptor also examines the remains of one of the Sharkticon marauders. Rodimus admits that it "looks familiar, but isn't any Decepticon I know." I hate it when characters conveniently know all the information they need to know just to move the plot along, but this almost pushes it too far in the other direction. Is it because the Sharkticon is in robot mode, but all the ones that Hot Rod fought in the movie were in creature mode? Anyway, Rodimus opts to travel to Chaar to find out for sure. When Perceptor offers to come along, Rodimus reminds him of the events from the movie, citing "the last two guys who tried to watch out for me." He's most likely referring to Optimus Prime (who died because he wouldn't fire on Hot Rod) and Ultra Magnus (who got blow to bits protecting the Autobots, though Hot Rod wasn't present in that scene). You could make a good argument that the other guy is Kup, even though he got ripped apart on Quintessa for no reason, not because he was protecting Hot Rod specifically. In any event, Perceptor reexamines his decision and sends Grimlock along in his place. Grimlock, who is officially an idiot now, jumps around like a child and giggles in delight. (I'm sure the Dinobots like Rodimus as a leader better than Optimus. Rodimus doesn't keep them stuffed in a closet!)

So, Arcee and Springer are chasing down the mystery ship, which is being piloted by a new character called a Skuxxoid. (For years, we didn't know the official spelling of this guy's species until I dug up a copy of the Marvel Productions Casting List. You're welcome.) I'm pretty sure he's being voiced by Charlie Adler in this episode, but they flange his voice so heavily that it's so hard to make out what he's saying. He's arguably speaking an alien language during his first line of dialogue, but I could swear up and down that it ends with, "have a little... accident!" This seems to foreshadow what he's about to do: he docks his ship on board a larger asteroid, which itself turns out to be a much larger ship. It grabs Springer and Arcee's craft and crushes it, forcing them to evacuate.

"This thing biological or mechanical?" Arcee seems to be asking of the asteroid. Are those the only choices? Wouldn't a big hunk of space rock be... well, neither? Anyway, Springer seems to also recognize that the asteroid is something more... much more than meets the eye, and blasts a hole in it, revealing the Skuxxoid rehearsing his surrender. (Seriously. He's saying "I surrender, I surrender!" long before Springer and Arcee approach him.)

In addition to the quality of the animation taking a big nosedive, the visual language of the show has changed. The Transformer characters themselves are still Floro Dery designs, but he was no longer actively working on the show by this point, which means he was no longer around to design the backgrounds and props and random aliens. His character designs had a certain poetic, whimsical flair (Aron from "Child's Play" with his great, big, goofy eyes) that's totally absent in characters like the Skuxxoid.

The Skuxxoid is actually working for the Quintessons in this episode, and he's been instructed to mislead Springer and Arcee into believing that the Decepticons are the kidnappers. He sure doesn't do a very convincing job of it ("The who? Oh, I mean, yes, of course! The Decepticons!") but Springer and Arcee swallow it hook, line, and sinker anyway. Skuxxy is allowed to escape so that he can continue to pester the Autobots in future episodes like "Chaos" and "Starscream's Ghost" and "Grimlock's New Brain." Man, he got more episodes than a lot of characters with actual Hasbro toys.

Frenzy (or Rumble) takes his cue from his maligned movie dialogue, when he expresses concern over Soundwave being characterized as "uncrazzamatic." In this episode, he's making general comments about wanting to "powderulverize" the Autobots. He's officially supplanted Breakdown as the Decepticon who mangles words. Onslaught, who has been turned into total scrap metal despite his total absence from the events of the movie, agrees with Rumble-or-Frenzy's words, and does so in Wildrider's voice. (It's not even Wildrider's REGULAR voice. It's Wildrider's new "Five Faces of Darkness" voice that we'll hear later, because Terry McGovern can barely remember what Launchpad McQuack sounds like, let alone some random minor robot character.) Oddly, Motormaster expresses something like respect for Optimus Prime, praising him as a once-great leader and longing for something like that for the Decepticons. (Yeah, you won't be getting that. You'll be getting Galvatron instead.)

Cyclonus and the Sweeps return from their Galvatron-scouting mission and collect energon donations from the other Decepticons in order, presumably, to make the trip to Thraal. The other troops are understandably reluctant to part with their energon reserves, at least until Cyclonus turns into a television evangelist and implores them to "gii-ii-iive 'till it huu-uu-uurts!" (I am not making this up.) It's around this time that the animators pretty much give up on the Decepticons background characters. Up to this point, they'd done a fairly admirable job of drawing and coloring the characters correctly, but perhaps due to budgetary constraints, perhaps due to not giving a shit, they eventually started drawing and coloring the characters more or less randomly. I don't count Octane's presence on Chaar as a mistake (he was probably kicked off Cybertron when the Autobots took over), but there are also Predacons on Chaar, blue Swindles, dead 1984 Decepticon jets... oh, and GALVATRON.

Actually, I think a lot of the generic background characters accidentally created in this mini-series were done so due to a lack of communication. For some reason, the animation models for dead characters like Shockwave, Thundercracker, Brawn, etc. evidently remained in active service for the animators to find. Somebody should have made sure they were removed from the available character files, but they weren't. The guys drawing the cels certainly couldn't have been expected to have an active understanding of which characters were alive and which ones weren't. Every time a dead character shows up, though, he's invariably colored wrong. This suggests to me that the cel artists had the black-and-white models available for reference, but the color keys WERE discarded, so the cel painters saw these robots and couldn't find any characters that they matched up with. That's why we get Shockwaves colored like Constructicons and Thundercrackers colored like Onslaught, I suspect. (And, really, Transformers gets analyzed far, far more heavily than most cartoon shows. How many animation mistakes could I cite from, say, Dinosaucers or Chip an' Dale's Rescue Rangers or Galaxy High? Well, I don't know. I haven't seen them since the 1980's and don't own any episodes on DVD.)

Atop a mountain peak, Rodimus and Grimlock are observing the plight of the 'Cons and reach the conclusion that they're clearly in no position to be kidnapping anybody. The Decepticons notice them, though (mostly due to some unusually loud ranting from Grimlock about not feeling sorry for them), and they attack.

Oddly, the Shout Factory DVD transfer of this episode does a freeze-frame as Cyclonus and the Decepticons attack. As originally broadcast (and, I think, on the Rhino DVD), the titles "TO BE CONTINUED" are superimposed on the screen as Cyclonus and friends continue to approach.

Even the credits sequence is kind of cruddy. While the third-season episodes following the mini-series got a new title sequence, the same cannot be said of the end credits. Even the episodes that were animated by Toei (and therefore actually look good) are still bookended by the AKOM sequences. Something of note is that some of the animation from the credits is different than what we got in the episodes. For example, in the end credits, Kup just runs in place for a moment before he finally transforms to truck mode. Also, the same footage of Cyclonus transforming from jet to robot mode and then landing is used twice during the credits. Nope, not sloppy at all. Traditionally, it's footage of characters transforming that get used for the credits, but for this one, sometimes it's just random scenes like the Constructicons in-fighting. We also get this random no-name loser robot from the Galactic Olympics, forever immortalized in the credits.

FIVE FACES OF DARKNESS PART 2

In the recap for part 1, there's a cool splicing together of footage where they used the scene from the end of the movie, with Unicron's disembodied head swooping towards the camera, and then jump to a matte painting of Unicron's eye with Cyclonus climbing into it. It's not totally seamless, but it's still cool. We also get to hear Ted Schwartz's version of Rodimus Prime in the recap, which is arguably closer to the timbre of Judd Nelson. It's likely that he recorded all or most of Rodimus Prime's dialogue for "Five Faces of Darkness"; Dick Gautier eventually replaced the dialogue in the episodes proper, but not in the recap segments. (This also means that Dick Gautier was probably the first Transformers voice actor who had to try to match the lip movements of the character. Typically, in American shows, the dialogue is recorded first and the animation is created to match it.)

As our episode finally begins, two minutes and thirty seconds later, Grimlock and Rodimus are knocked off the ledge by laser blasts and are forced to confront a mob of approaching Decepticons. Their laser weapons run out of juice, though, so they just keep marching on. "Me, Grimlock, like shooting when can't miss!" Grimlock quips. (In this scene, Rumble and Soundwave are the same height, further evidence that they didn't have a scale sheet on hand.) It's around this time that the animators have stopped even trying to get their background Decepticons to match any existing designs. There are robots that kinda-sorta look like Stunticons and Combaticons, but they're colored randomly (the sorta-Breakdown is colored like Rumble, for example; some Decepticon with Optimus Prime windows in his chest is colored like Soundwave). They're all moving in synch, suggesting they used one animated sequence of a Decepticon troop marching and just photocopied it, changing only the surface details. Anyway, in the end, the Decepticons finally just start bludgeoning the Autobots with the butts of their rifles.

They're interrupted when Soundwave observes an "alien object: approaching!" and they're forced to hunt cover. It's the rockaroid, and Springer and Arcee waste no time in retrieving Grimlock and the unconscious form of Rodimus. "Those miserable Skuxxoids!" Cyclonus balks, the only such time on the show that the Skuxxoid species is identified in dialogue. "Eh, they'd sell out to anybody for the right price," Swindle observes. "If anyone would know, Swindle..." remarks Cyclonus. Say what you want about this mini-series, but it does have some clever rejoinders. (This also establishes on some level that Cyclonus does have some memories of his former existence. Cyclonus wasn't around for episodes like "B.O.T.", when Swindle sold off the Combaticon parts for petty cash, but Skywarp sure was!)

The energon cubes are multi-colored in this episode, which they haven't done for a long, long time on the show. Seems like they started out pink in "More Than Meets the Eye" but they would change to multi-spectral when they were pushed down and compacted for transport (something else that they stopped doing shortly after the pilot mini-series). Also, Kickback appears in two scenes as Cyclonus and the Sweeps collect their donations and fly away. I can never decide whether he's really dead or not. People used to say he was an Insecticon clone, but a) the clones couldn't exist without Shrapnel's control beams, and b) they always appeared in insect mode, never in robot mode.

On planet Quintessa (a name which is itself something of a retcon; in the movie script and related material, the planet was called Quintesson), Kup is being interrogated. "You are the Autobot called Kup; you are Cybertron's chief of security," a Quintesson Judge assesses. "Nah, my name's Teaspoon," Kup remarks. "I'm Cybertron's chief dishwasher." I'm telling you, this is a well-written mini-series. It's consistently very clever. People would have loved it if it had been animated better. "Zero percent probability of truth," a Judge responds, who clearly can't take a joke.

Anyway, the whole purpose of this courtroom scene seems to actually provide a reason for the Quintessons putting robots on trial during the movie. In the film, they were just random, wacky aliens who liked to dress up in judicial robes, clack a gavel, and watch robots get eaten alive. Now it seems that they're actively pursuing the Transformers, specifically, who stole Cybertron from them. Of course, this doesn't really address the fact that a) even robots like Kranix, who were declared innocent, were still executed and b) they already put Kup on trial and didn't identify him by name or recognize him, or Hot Rod, as Transformers. Still, it's a good try, and gives the Quintessons some reason to exist other than just being egg-shaped weirdos.

The Quintessons grill him about Cybertron's defensive capability, ostensibly in eventual preparation for launching an assault to reclaim the planet. Spike observes that the Quintessons seem to be purposefully avoiding asking him any questions, which makes you wonder why he was captured in the first place. Nonetheless, Spike's hit it right on the nose; the Quintessons are good at predicting Transformer behavior, but the unpredictable human element throws a wrench into the works.

The rockaroid touches down on a crescent-shaped planet somewhere so Springer and Arcee can examine Rodimus. "My time in the light is short," Rodimus mumbles, echoing a line of Optimus Prime dialogue from an early version of the movie script. Arcee correctly recognizes it as something she heard Prime say, and concludes that Rodimus is dying and is preparing to pass on the Matrix. Rodimus Prime's eyes glow for a moment and then stop, but he does not turn grey. Despite this, Grimlock starts crying (?!), wiping the tears away from his optics despite the fact that T. rex was not able to reach his own head. Arcee uses a medical instrument to conclude that Rodimus Prime's life force is gone. Springer establishes that the Autobots bury their dead, which in itself is kind of weird, but Grimlock points out that the Matrix hasn't popped out yet.

We see that Rodimus has in fact entered the Matrix in what can only be described as a near-death experience. Exactly what the Matrix is, and why the Autobots enter it when they die, requires a lot of convoluted hand-waving. (We know it can function as a key to Vector Sigma, but we also know it is not of Quintesson origin. Thus, I think it's reasonable to conclude that the Quintessons found the Matrix and built Vector Sigma to interact with it. After their robots started malfunctioning (i.e. developing emotions), they must have used the Matrix to dump their personalities into so they could start over with a clean slate and reprogram the former malfunctioning robots with new personalities. When the Autobots overtook Cybertron and exiled the Quintessons, they were stuck with this weird Matrix thingy and all these would-be rebel robots trapped inside it, so the least they could do was hang onto the Matrix and keep the attempted rebels safe.)

The Matrix vision could have been so cool if it had been animated by capable artists, but instead we get arabic numerals floating through space and lots of things exploding. Over and over again. Numbers explode. Quintessa explodes. Skull-faced robots explode. A whole parade of robots explode. A Quintesson explodes. Your neighbor's dog explodes. I guess we're supposed to get from this that something is going to eventually explode.

Rodimus explains that he was inside the Matrix and he's figured out where the missing Autobots are. "They hidden inside you?" the lamentably besotted Grimlock asks. "No, you bozology," Rodimus laughs. This is a really weird choice for an insult. You could argue that if Grimlock is a bozo ("me not bozo, me king!") then what he speaks, or thinks, would be bozology (if that were even a word to begin with). So, while it still sounds stupid, a Rodimus response that went, "None of your bozology!" would made a modicum of sense. Was Ron Friedman still rewriting the dialogue by this point?

I love the part when Rodimus asks if Grimlock remembers the whole business from the movie when the shuttle was shot down over Quintessa and Hot Rod went to trial. "Me, Grimlock, rescue you!" Grimlock affirms, prompting Arcee to look askance at Grimlock and go, "You must be kidding." Susan Blu's comic timing is perfect, and I love her deadpan delivery.

On Quintessa, Kup sums up the scene quite nicely: "We're gonna get a fair trial, and then they're gonna kill us." Spike incites an escape attempt (his initial attempts to do so go right over the head of Ultra Magnus, but Kup gets what Spike is trying to do). Kup and Magnus proceed to "rush 'em and pray!" but when Spike finds a gun and takes a Quintesson Judge hostage, the other Quintessons just sentence everybody to death, Quintesson hostage and all. (The guy's name is Deliberata, as in to deliberate during court proceedings. Apparently all Quintessons are named after legalistical judgy terms.)

On Thraal, the Sweeps retrieve Galvatron, who sure sounds different than he did in the movie. Plasma bath messed with his vocal components, one assumes. (It's the only time in the show that you can really find a valid excuse. I have this whole theory about airborne mutation spores in G.I. Joe: the Movie that everybody inhaled, explaining why nobody sounds the same in the DIC-produced episodes. Uh, except for Cobra Commander and Sgt. Slaughter, both of which already sound strangled to begin with.)

In another amazing nod to continuity, Rodimus actually finds the wreckage of his shuttle from The Transformers: the Movie and this leads him to identify Quintessa. (We will conveniently ignore the fact that his ship actually crashed on the planet, so no debris should be visible from space.) During the trial, Spike asks directly what crime they're being accused of, and in a roundabout sort of way, the Quintessons explain that the Autobots are guilty of theft because they occupy Cybertron. Just then, the rockaroid shows up, inducing terror in whomever sees it. "Perhaps we should seek some cover?" one of the Quintessons suggests, but another with the same voice--or perhaps the same Quintesson, arguing with himself, counters: "No, that would be cowardly. Place your faith in our defense systems." This entire exchange, by the way, was recycled for use in "Dark Awakening," for reasons that completely escape me. They blow up the rockaroid and assume that's the end of it.

On Thraal, Galvatron's not terribly thrilled about the state of the Decepticon army. Cyclonus appoints himself and the Sweeps the elite guard of the Decepticon army, dismissing the rest of the Decepticon troops as mere gunfodder. Soundwave, arguably the most loyal Decepticon in history... Ramjet, Thrust, and Dirge, once described by Megatron as "the most powerful jets in the galaxy"... the Constructicons, who combine into the mighty Devastator... all worthless and expendible, evidently. To his credit, Galvatron finds the idea laughable as well, and starts taking potshots at the Sweeps. Some of them fly away; others fall into the plasma; a few even manage to retaliate. What is Galvatron's plan here, exactly? To forcibly demonstrate to the Sweeps that immersion in the plasma will make them more powerful, as Galvatron claimed was the case with himself? No, he's just a lunatic. Scourge lands and tries a different approach, placating Galvatron with some smooth talk. "Watch out for this one, Cyclonus," Galvatron warns. "One day, he might take your place." Of course, Cyclonus' "place," as it turns out, is to become Galvatron's punching bag. Scourge probably wouldn't want the job.

Galvatron launches into space, transforms to cannon mode, and destroys Thraal. It's so difficult to gauge how powerful he still is. The Marvel Comics take on the character was that he was able to draw power from Unicron in direct proportion to his need, and this was based directly on Ron Friedman's notes for the character. So, at this stage, Galvatron can demolish a planet with a single shot. We'll see later that he's not nearly so powerful now as he was in the movie, though. In the film, he manages to atomize Starscream with a single blast. His weapons never have that kind of destructive power against other Transformers again.

So, the Autobot rescue party arrives. Rodimus and Arcee are riding on top of Springer, with Grimlock hanging on from below. (Why is it that other Triple Changers can grow to tremendous size and carry other Transformers, but not Springer?) Ultra Magnus, Kup, and Spike are pulled from the Sharkticon pits to safety; Ultra Magnus even saves the Quintesson who was sentenced along with them. And then uses him as a shield against the Sharkticon laser blasts. Hmm.

Then the Autobot cavalry recconoiters with the group. It's not blatantly obvious, but they've arrived aboard Broadside, serving as a non-speaking transport vehicle in his first animated appearance. He will get blown to bits, ressurected as a Decepticon, and then get a completely different, totally redesigned robot mode in the course of his travels. (As an aside, it makes sense that if he transforms into an aircraft carrier, then his other vehicle mode should be equally enormous. On the other hand, Astrotrain didn't always transform into a super-sized gigantic train. The whole size-changing nonsense of Transformers gives me a headache sometimes.)

While rescue operations are underway, the Quintessons, never ones to be outdone, decide to detonate Quintessa altogether. These guys have got a serious hate-on for the Autobots. (If my vaccuum cleaner started going haywire or if my computer suddenly locked up and didn't respond to my keyboard input, clearly the answer is to just burn down my condo.) Quintessa explodes (and freeze-frames, if you're watching the Shout Factory version).

FIVE FACES OF DARKNESS PART 3

The recap for parts 1 and 2 is unintentionally hilarious, as Victor Caroli intones, "The Autobots realize that the Decepticons are now too weak to have kidnapped Ultra Magnus, Kup, and Spike... but if they didn't, WHO DID??!!" Growing up, my sister and I had an inside joke where we constantly made fun of Don LaFontane's movie taglines. "If she didn't hang up the towels in the bathroom... WHO DID??!!" Maybe it's not funny to anybody else but me.

Rodimus Prime's delivery of the line, "Autobots, let's gettattahere!" at the beginning of this episode is a different voice delivery than the one from the end of part 2. Apparently it was less trouble to just re-record the line than to actually go digging through the voice recordings from the end of the last episode.

As Quintessa explodes, Broadside makes a valiant attempt to get free from the resultant destruction, but a chunk of the planet rips through his hull, completely destroying him. Alas, poor Broadside, we hardly knew ye. Autobots and Aerialbots and assorted organic creatures (some of them slimy worm-fingered creeps; others unlikable dry-skinned bipeds) are sent flying into space. Quintessons can survive in outer space, and yet "The Face of the Nijika" establishes that their ships have life support systems. Go figure. "You figured a way out of this, or are we in big trouble?" Springer asks Rodimus. "We're in big trouble," says an upside-down Kup without missing a beat. Again, perfect comic timing. I think the fact that he's floating upside-down is what makes it so funny.

Elsewhere, Cyclonus is filling Galvatron in on current events. Apparently, in the interim between The Transformers: the Movie and "Five Faces of Darkness" part 1, the Earth Defense Command program was launched, probably by G.I. Joe, to serve as the planet's main defense platform. I'm actually kind of surprised this didn't happen sooner. We'll see that EDC has orbital stations throughout the solar system, but they're inconsistent about keeping Decepticons from reaching Earth. Sometimes the EDC defenses are formidable and other times the Decepticons just waltz through without a second thought. The warp gates may or may not have a connection to EDC; I'm not sure. They're used infrequently throughout the series (they also show up in "The Quintesson Journal") and I think they were introduced as a means for characters to travel quickly between distant points in space, but most of the time the problem of long-distance space travel is just casually glossed over.

Well, Galvatron thinks the whole concept is patently absurd and has to see this for himself. "I think that plasma bath fried Galvatron's circuits," one of the Sweeps realizes. "It's not your place to think," Scourge corrects him. "Where he leads, all Decepticons must follow." This is more or less in synch with Scourge's single line of dialogue from the movie, but his character hasn't really been fully fleshed out yet. In fact, Scourge is a hard character for me to quantify. Is he devoutly loyal (as he is in this episode) or is he a traitor (as seen when he stole the Matrix in "The Burden Hardest to Bear")? Is he a capable hunter ("Starscream's Ghost") or is he grossly incompetent ("The Rebirth")?

Regarding Galvatron, though, this is a really fascinating changed premise for the character, and one probably introduced to make Galvatron more interesting. (What's funny is that, despite the Sweep's complaints, this episode actually shows Galvatron at his most lucid!) It seems like there's a clear attempt to distinguish the character from Megatron by making him more flawed, which in turn makes for better drama. It's the same with Rodimus Prime. Optimus was basically perfect in every way, but Rodimus is headstrong and insecure and makes bad decisions, which again makes for more compelling storytelling.

The notion that the Autobots are just tumbling helplessly through space kind of flies in the face of what we've seen from other episodes. The whole "Autobots can't fly" rule seems to really mean "Autobots can fly, but they're really bad at it." They're still able to propel themselves through space, as we'll see in "Forever is a Long Time Coming" and "Carnage in C-Minor" and "Ghost in the Machine." The way they're just letting their inertia dictate the course of their lives bothers me. If nothing else, the Aerialbots should be able to change course, right?

Oh, joy, it's time to check in on Blurr and Wheelie. They've made it to the solar system, but so has Galvatron. Wheelie is the first to notice him on the view screen, and tries to warn Blurr, but Blurr is babbling too much to take notice. There's a cool moment when we see Galvatron on the view screen aiming his cannon and firing, and an instant later, the hull behind Blurr and Wheelie blows up.

As an aside, Wheelie does not rhyme with one hundred percent consistency. "Why do you fear? Can the dead be here?" he asks, but then as the hull is breached, he whispers, "Can they?!" So, obviously he's not locked into rhyming by some bizarre programming bug. In other words, he chooses to be annoying. He does it deliberately. There's some evidence that Blurr really does have some sort of problem (Sandstorm accuses him of having a bad timing program in one episode) and he seems to only be able to slow down and speak normally with a great deal of effort (as he does in "The Face of the Nijika"). Wheelie, on the other hand? There's no excuse for Wheelie's behavior.

The Decepticons make short work of the Earth Defense Command outpost, and then they notice Blurr and Wheelie's shuttle making a break for it. "Bring me their heads as souveniers!" Galvatron commands, and the Decepticons pursue. Blurr suggests hiding near Jupiter. Well, actually, he just stands there and goes "JupiterJupiterJupiterJupiter." Wheelie has no idea what the hell Blurr is talking about. I can't say I blame him. During this scene, Wheelie slips into an alternate voice performance. I'm guessing what happened was that additional lines of dialogue were written, or perhaps the original recording was bad and needed to be replaced. The replacement voice for Wheelie is quite patently not Frank Welker, however. I have no idea who provided Wheelie's substitute voice, but it sounds terrible. At least Welker can pull off a Poet Smurf voice and make it sound professional. This guy is effecting this horrible falsetto, like Mickey Mouse, and it makes an already annoying character truly repugnant.

On Earth, we see Autobot City manned by Blaster and, in a rare appearance, Eject. He alerts the EDC base on Mars to the Decepticon activity, and the EDC captain stationed there is dispatched to intercept. Her name is Marissa Fairborne, who, as we all know, is the daughter of Flint and Lady Jaye from G.I. Joe (Flint's civilian name is Dashiell Fairborne). Say what you want about this mini-series, but it's very ambitious in the number of new concepts it throws at you. Marissa is voiced by Sue "Arcee" Blu in some kind of bizarre almost-English accent.

Galvatron continues to pursue Blurr and Wheelie. The way the animators draw Galvatron's transformation is not always consistent. Sometimes, his arm cannon falls off his arm and disappears off-screen, and a new cannon emerges from his head. Other times, you can actually see him attach the arm cannon to his head during transformation. Galvatron transforms both ways during the fight on Jupiter.

Blurr and Wheelie disappear into the depths of Jupiter. Specifically, they appear to fall into the Great Red Spot, which is known to be a tremendous storm within the gas planet. Wheelie takes a direct hit from Decepticon laser fire. "Galvatron is strong, but Wheelie is mean!" he quips (again, not rhyming), retaliating and shooting one of the Sweeps directly in the face. "My guidance system is hit! Galvatron, save meeeee!" the disabled Sweep implores before disappearing into the depths of the gas giant. "Please meet your end with dignity! I despise whiners!" Galvatron remarks. (He's got Megatron eyebrows in this scene. Seriously.) This is the first instance of how the Sweeps are used as disposable troops in the series (we lost a couple of them in the movie, too, but everybody dies in the movie). On one hand, it's more realistic to expect some of the Decepticons to lose their lives during the course of a war. They couldn't really write a scene like this in season one or two and have Rumble or Mixmaster just suddenly die. On the other hand, in some ways, the medium is the message, and we know going into subsequent episodes that the Sweeps, and ONLY the Sweeps, will be the ones to die.

Something else unfortunate about the nature of the Sweeps is that, as generic characters, they're generally voiced by random actors, whoever happens to be working on that episode. In "Ghost in the Machine," they sound like Starscream. In "Fight or Flee," they sound like Sandstorm. In "Webworld," they sound like Sky Lynx. It's just the nature of the beast. It's not like this is G.I. Joe and we're dealing with random Vipers and Cobra Officers that probably number in the hundreds or thousands. It's conceivable you would see one of them in a single episode, and then never again. Only two Sweeps were created in The Transformers: the Movie, three if you include Scourge. Literally dozens of them are destroyed in the course of the third season. I want to say it's got something to do with Shrapnel and his ability to make Insecticon clones, though I'm not quite sure how that would work.

Anyway, Galvatron blasts the Great Red Spot and exacerbates the storm. The storm goes nuts. The Sweeps hate it; Galvatron loves it. "Bravo, Galvatron," Cyclonus praises his leader. "The Autobots' destruction is assured!" Galvatron knocks Cyclonus for a loop. "Assured is not enough! I told you I want their heads, Cyclonus!"

Elsewhere, the Quintessons are on board their corkscrew ship watching home movies. They believe the Autobots went up in smoke with the destruction of Quintessa. "I am uncertain how to celebrate it," states one Quintesson. "Perhaps a quiet chuckle," suggests another. "Very well, then," agrees the first. "Let us... chuckle." The Quintessons proceed to chuckle. Say what you want about this mini-series, but this is exceptional writing. It's so downplayed and dry that it almost doesn't read as humor, but I find it hysterical. The Quintessons are so utterly based in logic and reason that they have to sit and deliberate over whether something is funny enough to laugh about. THAT is utter hilarity.

Of course, the Autobots aren't finished yet. They're floating through space uncontrollably! The Quintessons lack the strength and firepower to destroy the Autobots in a direct assault, so they resolve to effect a merger with the Decepticons.

The Autobots finally land on a planet called Goo. Technically, it's Goo #8739B, suggesting perhaps that there are thousands of other Goo planets, all distinguished by numbers. It is perhaps the very strangest planet in the history of the show. (Or, as the wrong-voiced Rodimus puts it: "This isn't a planet! I dunno WHAT it is!") The entire planet is covered in a viscous glue-like substance, and a machine called an elemental processing unit routinely patrols the planet and sucks up whatever's stuck to the goo. I have absolutely no idea what purpose this serves. At a guess, the goo is meant to trap useful ships or technology, and the processing unit harvests them and somebody comes by later to collect their treasures. Apparently it's a Junkion operation, since we'll see them get involved a bit later.

There's a fairly disturbing scene when Kup notices something making muffled noises and pulls out... not Judge Deliberata, but one of the disembodied faces of Judge Deliberata. It's still talking and complaining about being robbed of his dignity, so it's evidently not in pain. So, apparently the egg bodies are just a vehicle for the faces, and it's the faces that are, themselves, alive. The Quintessons were weird before, but now they're positively horrifying.

Back on Jupiter, Blurr and Wheelie are STILL getting fired on by Galvatron. I tend to complain about two-part episodes being stuffed with padding to extend the episodes to their proper length. This is the only five-part episode in the show ("The Rebirth" was originally planned to be before Hasbro requested that it be shortened), and while it's surprisingly fast-paced, this is where it starts to drag a little. The worst part is probably the fight between Predaking and Sky Lynx, but the misadventures of Blurr and Wheelie is a close second. Anyway, they fall out of Jupiter and crash on Io, one of its moons.

"Mighty Galvatron, where are the Autobots' heads?" Cyclonus wonders. Another mighty uppercut. "It doesn't matter. Their destruction is assured!" Galvatron states. This is great writing. I do feel bad for Cyclonus, though. Megatron would occasionally lash out at his troops, but Galvatron does it on a regular basis, and he seems to reserve most of it for Cyclonus, specifically. It's battered wife syndrome all over again. Just because Starscream's dead doesn't mean the domestic abuse is over. It just means Megatron/Galvatron found himself a new favorite punching bag.

Back on Goo, the Autobots fire on the processing unit, but the thing is completely indestructible. Springer changes to helicopter mode with the intent of air-lifting everyone to safety, but his activity attracts the machine and it makes a bee-line for Springer. It sucks him up and he is completely dismantled. Arcee shrieks in horror. Is Springer dead? Your instincts say no, but you have to wonder. The movie totally broke the rules about who can die and who can't. In 1985, you knew Wheeljack would survive getting crushed by Motormaster in "Trans-Europe Express." You knew it wasn't the end for Tracks just because Blitzwing crushed him in "Triple Takeover." Now, you're not so sure. At this point, so early in the show, it's still open season. Besides, it's not like Springer just fell over and got knocked unconscious. We see his ruined parts and his battered, lifeless head. There's no coming back from that, right?

So the Quintessons arrive on Chaar in preparation to dupe the Decepticons into doing their dirty work. This is one of the scenes where the animators just started making so many mistakes that you just sort of have to put your filters on and ignore it all. "They wanna make a deal with us," Blitzwing observes in Swindle's voice. "One of us has to go out there," realizes Breakdown, speaking in Dead End's voice. The real Dead End, never one to put too fine a point on things, decides that he'll be the one to go out and bargain with the Quintessons since he's just going to die anyway. (Silly Dead End. You're not a Sweep!)

The Quintesson faces are just drawn so badly in this sequence. Admittedly, they're extremely complex designs with loads of detail, far too much to effectively reproduce on a regular basis. I think the more detail you throw into a design, though, the more potential there is to get stuff wrong. Bumblebee's head design was very simple. Yellow helmet, white face, blue eyes. Easy-peasy, lemon squeezy. The Quintessons are constantly being miscolored, with this guy missing his moustache or that guy's horns or teeth the wrong color because there's just so much insane complexity.

Dead End takes the bait and eats some energon. He's wearing a face mask, of course, but it just sort of opens up and reveals a mouth-like protrusion under his nose. It's actually a little disturbing. Episodes like "Microbots" have established that the Decepticons drink out of energon cubes like they're gigantic goblets. Obviously, the Decepticons with masks have to be able to do this somehow. Does Soundwave drink energon cubes like this? Does OPTIMUS PRIME drink energon like this? Well, he doesn't anymore, because he's dead. But still. Since Dead End has tasted the energon and is not dead, the other Decepticons crawl out of the woodwork and have themselves a big ol' smorgasbord.

Back on Goo, the elemental processing unit has set its sights on Rodimus. "Forget everything I told you about heroism! RUN!" advises Kup. Despite this, Rodimus remains strangely cool and collected, waiting until the last minute before stuffing some goo up into the processing unit's moving parts. This disables it and it crashes into the goo. "This is impossible! You were never programmed for self-sacrifice!" Judge Deliberata proclaims, in some foreshadowing to part 4. "How would you know?" Rodimus retorts. How, indeed?

Back on Chaar... wait, that's an establishing shot of Goo. Huh. Well, it's supposed to be Chaar. With the Decepticons noshing on energon hors d'oeuvres and properly sated, the Quintessons make their move. They explain they would be willing to provide energon to the Decepticons indefinitely if they destroy the Autobots in return. "C'mon, you gotta be kidding! We'd do that anyway!" proclaim Swindle and Drag Strip and Motormaster all at the exact same time. A non-flanged Onslaught correctly points out that Cybertron's defenses are impregnable. Bruticus and the five Combaticons nod in agreement. Only Blitzwing seems to suspect something is up. "They lie! They want something more! I know you... or creatures like you... hmm, if only I could remember..."

By accident or design, this is remarkably consistent with what we know about Transformer long-term memory. Optimus Prime was unable to recall that Alpha Trion was his creator. Ultra Magnus didn't remember his own birthday. Over the long haul, Transformers just... forget stuff. Maybe it's a deliberate programming trait established by the Quintessons. Planned obsolescence, or a hardware limitation. Whatever the case, it does seem strange that Blitzwing, of all Decepticons, would be the oldest among them. Still, I'm willing to roll with it.

With regards to joining the Quintessons, Dead End basically goes "what could possibly go wrong?" and various Decepticons, and Fireflight the Aerialbot, mutter in agreement. Blitzwing casts the single opposing vote, so the other Decepticons unanimously agree to climb on board the corkscrew ship. The Quintessons seem to have known all along that the Decepticons would be so easily coerced. "Their programs are not nearly so tainted as the Autobots'," a Quintesson remarks. So, for some reason, the Autobots have diverged much more significantly from Quintesson expectations. We'll learn more about this in part 4.

Cyclonus introduces Galvatron to Chaar; Galvatron is less than impressed. For some bizarre reason, all the Sweeps are suddenly being colored like random other Decepticons--Dirge, Swindle, Soundwave, etc. Galvatron reconnoiters with Blitzwing (and recognizes him instantly, a sign that vestiges of Megatron's memories remain). Suddenly, Ed Gilbert has forgotten what Blitzwing sounds like and is effecting a deep, grumbly General Hawk voice for him. He tries to inform Galvatron of the Quintesson plot, but the poor guy just can't remember enough about them. "Ancient creatures known as As-Uh-Um" is about the best he can do. Galvatron is largely unconcerned. He killed Starscream to get his army back; he can just do it again if need be.

On the moon of Io, Blurr and Wheelie-with-fake-voice are stranded without a ship. Io is a volcanic moon, and apparently it's home to volcanic creatures that live inside the volcanos and do volcanic stuff. God, I do so hate Wheelie's alternate voice. "Wheelie okay! Blurr, what do you say?" Blurr says he wants to rip off that stupid baseball cap helmet design of yours and shove it into your mouth until you asphyxiate.

On Goo, the Autobots walk right off the Goo, stomp onto a metal box, and jump right back into the Goo, despite the episode going to a lot of trouble to establish that "you can move through this stuff, but not off it." Just then, droves of miscolored Decepticons pour from the Quintesson ship and attack, while Rodimus and friends just stand there and watch as they're pelted with laser fire. You've got your Shockwave colored like Long Haul. You've got your entirely grey Thundercracker. Shrapnel also makes a guest appearance. The thing about Shockwave, in particular, that really grates on me is that he's got such a distinct design. Gun for an arm and a lightbulb for a face. No other Decepticon looks like that. They really should have just colored him correctly, alleged movie death be damned. I, of course, eventually started celebrating these unsung characters, giving them names and personalities and painting toys in their likeness, because it's either that or go insane.

"FIVE FACES OF DARKNESS" PART 4

The recap for parts 1-3 is the only source that identifies the machine on planet Goo as an "elemental processing unit." See what you learn when you pay attention?

Oh, good gravy. The miscolored Decepticons just keep on a-comin'. There's Blitzwing, colored like Air Raid. There's Octane, colored like Grimlock. There's Wildrider, colored like Cyclonus. There's even a Decepticon identical to the Dinobot Snarl, colored like Rodimus Prime (?!). Some Decepticons are just random robots that the animators made up. They've clearly stopped caring altogether. This is no longer a 22-minute toy commercial. It's just a spectacle of the damned.

"Yes, yes! Even if my life is forfeit, destroy them! Destroy them!" chants Deliberata. "Me, Grimlock, say shut your faces!" retorts Grimlock with a well-placed tail-whack. Come one, you have to admit "shut your faces" is pretty funny. Also, Slag has inexplicably joined the Autobots, despite not having appeared in "Five Faces of Darkness" at any point previously.

There's an exchange between Dead End and Blast Off, the two most aristocratic Decepticons in history. They're like the Goofy Gophers from Looney Tunes. "After you, Blast Off." "Oh, no, Dead End, after you, I absolutely insist." Dead End ventures that this opportunity was all thanks to their new allies. When Blast Off says he doesn't get what Dead End is driving at, Swindle interrupts with, "He means, what other opportunities--" but is cut off. I blame sloppy sound editing. Galvatron enters the fray with an unflanged voice and threatens the Decepticon troops for forsaking him. He literally runs through space, taking steps and marching on top of a ground that isn't there.

"Galvatron, you have returned!" announces Motormaster, speaking in some bizarre Sweep-like voice that doesn't match any known character. Fortunately, Galvatron shoots him a couple of times and it resets his vocalizer and he's back to normal. "They gave us energon! They led us on this raid!" Swindle says, indicating the Quintessons. "What can you give us that they didn't?" Skydive, the Aerialbot traitor, nods in agreement. "'They'? 'THEY?' Who are 'THEY'?!" Galvatron explodes. It's really funny. He ventures towards the Quintesson ship, intending to chew bubblegum and kick egg-shaped butts. And he's all out of bubblegum.

On Goo, Rodimus and Magnus are totally shocked that the Decepticons haven't managed to kill them yet. Magnus blames it on "sloppiness" and "disorganization." They easily step out of the goo and into a control room of some sort, totally defying the rules carefully laid down about the planet in the previous episode. They observe that the television screens are just about the only thing in the control room that actually works, a fair indication that it's the Junkions doing the upkeep. Sure enough, Rodimus manages to raise Wreck-Gar on a communications channel (and this is the first time the character is identified by name in dialogue; he was never called by name in The Transformers: the Movie). "Glad you used the dial; wish everybody would!" Wreck-Gar says, in a clever spin on the old Dial soap commercials.

Wreck-Gar's television jargon goes through a few different iterations. In the movie, he spoke mainly in non-specific cliched phrases ("film at eleven" is common TV speak and not from a single source) but in this episode he's making contemporary 1980's pop culture references (his dialogue borrows from the Price is Right! game show and the old AllState commercials). In later episodes, like "The Big Broadcast of 2006," the references are exclusively from 1960's programming. In a way, this kind of makes sense, since (realistically) it would take a while for Earth's television signals to reach Junkion. The show isn't too consistent about this, though (he's back to 1980's references by "The Return of Optimus Prime").

Back on Io, Blurr and Wheelie have been destroyed by the deadly volcanic creatures. Oh, wait. That's just a fantasy of mine. No, they're just running from the creatures. They're bizarre bat-like things called, apparently, lipoles. Usually the creature names in this show make some kind of sense ("animalien" = animal + alien) but when it comes to the lipoles, I can't possibly begin to explain the etymology. It sounds like "lightpoles," but they are obviously not street lamps. Also, the only time the creatures are even named is by Victor Caroli in one of the recap segments. Blurr and Wheelie don't call the creatures by name, and the creatures themselves certainly don't call them this. So how do we know they're called lipoles? It's a dumb name. But "mynocks" was taken, apparently.

Wheelie is overcome by a swarm of the things and tosses the cog to Blurr, urging him to escape. Blurr suffers a crisis of conscience and sits there babbling about all the possible courses of action he could possibly take while his friend is being eaten alive, or whatever it is that lipoles do. In the end, he rushes back into the thick of things to protect Wheelie. It's Marissa Fairborne who has to venture into the fray, rocketing along in her space suit and firing her puny little laser blaster at the monsters. The lipoles manage to one-up her, as they all transform, in unison, into missiles and proceed to blow up Marissa's ship. The Transformers: the Movie already strained credibility in establishing that basically everything in the cartoon can transform (cities, humans, alligator monsters, giant planets) so at this point one more random species capable of transforming shouldn't bother me. But it does. It really, really does.

Well, Blurr freaks out over the destruction of the ship, but Marissa is more pragmatic. "If you're going to panic, panic productively," she suggests, and goes to see if the radio transmitter is still salvageable. We are left to infer that she gets through to Blaster at Autobot City, because he sends a rescue ship in the next episode.

Near Goo, Galvatron blasts his way aboard the Quintesson ship. "I wish to meet the new leaders of the Decepticons!" he cackles. The Quintessons immediately recognize that Galvatron's completely off his rocker and realize that they have to manipulate him very carefully. They put on a show of arguing amongst themselves, refusing to tell Galvatron about the fabled Decepticon Matrix of Leadership, but of course Galvatron demands to know just what they're talking about--grabbing one of the Quintessons by the tentacles and throwing him to the ground with a wet, squishy sound to illustrate his point. The Quintessons want to know what they will receive for providing the secret. "I might let you live!" was Megatron's go-to response in situations like this (he said something close to these exact words in "Make Tracks" and "Trans-Europe Express") but the Quintessons refuse to be bested. "Our lives are not enough!" they insist, demanding that Galvatron eradicate the Autobots on Goo as a show of good faith. Thus begins the long-suffering Decepticon-Quintesson alliance.

Galvatron wastes no time in attacking. "Try and take on Galvatron first!" Kup suggests, and this gets Rodimus Prime's attention (it's the first time he realizes Galvatron has not been destroyed). Wreck-Gar arrives in his junk cruiser and sucks the Autobots through the Goo and into his ship (he gets Deliberata, too, but evidently deems the Quintesson unfit for rescue, and promptly ejects him back out of the ship, past Galvatron, and into the darkness of space; we never see Deliberata again). Galvatron blasts the crap out of planet Goo, seemingly destroying it (we know that it's not completely gone, since it appears again in "Chaos"), and he declares the Junkions enemies just as the Autobots are.

The Quintessons continue to dangle the carrot in front of Galvatron's nose in the form of the Decepticon Matrix. They recognize that Galvatron probably doubts that it even exists (he's right, by the way) but even Galvatron has to admit that the Quintessons would make worthy allies. He wants to know why they haven't just eradicated the Autobots on their own. "Their association with these humans has changed them!" they protest. "We find the Earth creatures highly unpredictable and troublesome." Galvatron thinks this is an absolute laugh riot. "You FEAR the humans?!" he balks, cackling maniacally. With that, he makes the alliance official. On board the ship, various Decepticons pledge their allegiance with a ceremonial salute--Octane, Soundwave, Starscream colored like Onslaught, and TWO Shockwaves colored like Constructicons. (Of all the generic background characters, I think that this Decepticon jet, who I call Slaughterhouse, is my favorite.)

On the Planet of Junk (which has been renamed Junkion in the TV series), Wreck-Gar reveals that he can reassemble Springer. There's no montage of Junkion bikers applying wax or putting Springer's legs on backwards, though. Wreck-Gar just presses a button on his ship, and it spits Springer out, completely whole and seemingly no worse for wear. (If Springer is Han Solo, then this is the part where he's been released from the carbonite freezing. "I love you," says Arcee. "I know," says Springer. Okay, not really.)

Rodimus is so wrapped up in worrying about the Quintessons that he barely acknowledges that Springer's alive and functional again. Because of his earlier near-death experience, when the Matrix seemed to guide him to the right answers, Rodimus suspects that the ancient Autobot leaders from within the Matrix must know something about the Quintessons. "So, just get blasted again and almost die," Springer suggests. Arcee feels like she has to go out of her way to point out that Springer is joking, but Rodimus takes the suggestion to heart--literally. He reaches inside his own chest, rips out some wiring, and this proves sufficient to instantly render him unconscious. ("This is impossible! You were never programmed for self-suicide!")

From within the Matrix, an elderly Autobot leader appears and guides Rodimus through his journey through ancient history. He's sporting what looks like a pre-Autobot symbol on his forehead, evidently an early iteration of the "slave brand" (which is what the Autobot symbol actually is, according to "Forever is a Long Time Coming"). "Prepare to look into the face of your creator!" he warns, and a Quintesson emerges! We learn that the entire planet of Cybertron was built by the Quintessons as a manufacturing facility to produce robot merchandise. Sounds a lot like a place in Rhode Island, doesn't it? The two assortments were the "consumer goods," ostensibly household robots that did chores and such, and the "military hardware" line, a stronger and more powerful style of robot equipped with weaponry. We see many, many identical robots being churned out from the assembly line, which is something we always kind of already knew (Starscream, Thundercracker, and Skywarp, for example) but is interesting to get official confirmation finally. This also kind of helps to validate the various miscolored characters who appear throughout the series. A Thundercracker colored like Onslaught doesn't necessarily HAVE to be an error; for all we know there are hundreds of Decepticon jets still running around who never got Hasbro toys.

We learn that the Quintessons programmed the robots with a "simulated intelligence" to the point where the robots could do the factory work themselves. Sometimes, though, the Quintessons just dumped a robot they didn't care for into a recycling pit, and a new robot was born in its place. (There is a scene where a Quintesson whips a slave robot for poor performance, and other robot onlookers recoil in horror. One of them is a generic female robot with Elita One's color scheme, and another looks like a female version of Bumblebee in Kup colors. Somebody retroactively decided that these are "really" Strika from Beast Machines, despite the fact that Strika was not pink, and Glyph, the BotCon toy.)

During this Matrix vision, Autobot leaders take turns narrating the story. One of them is blue and grey and seems to be heavily based on the design for Cyclonus, if you took his wings away and gave him a lightsaber. He's the one fighting in the gladiator ring and decides to turn on the Quintessons, getting blasted in the chest for his trouble (and dying, since he stops narrating his part in the story after this).

We learn that the slave robots eventually revolted and drove the Quintessons off their factory-planet. I tend to assume this was the First Cybertron War, even though this is never expressly revealed in the series. "For a time, the robots lived in harmony," says an Autobot leader who sounds exactly like Silverbolt. We see two Constructicon-colored vehicles, one of them actually sharing an animation model with Grapple (this is Road Hauler, the eHobby toy, evidently). We also see five dancing girl robots all identical in design and color scheme to Elita One. So many recycled designs.

There's a little bit of animation trickery in one scene, when we see a light blue Autobot with handlebars on his head riding a light blue motorcycle, and a purple Decepticon with lightning bolts on his chest riding a purple motorcycle with lightning bolts on it. First of all, it's obvious that each of these robot designs and vehicle designs was intended to be the same character, but the animators evidently mistook the character models for drawings of robots and the vehicles that they drove. Isn't that supposed to be the Junkions' trick? Speaking of the Junkions, the model for this light blue robot was used earlier in the episode; he was one of the Junkions standing next to Wreck-Gar. So, apparently this guy is, like, eleven million years old. (I'll bet he doesn't remember the Quintessons any better than Blitzwing.)

The names for the various Autobot leaders, as given in the script, were kind of generic. The blue guy who looks like Cyclonus was called "Powerful Robot." The orange-and-blue one who sounds like Ultra Magnus was called "U-Haul Robot." Amusingly, it seems that the color model for U-Haul Robot was retained by the animation studios following this episode, and even dispersed to OTHER animation studios. There are are least two instances where Long Haul the Constructicon was mistaken for U-Haul, and colored like the U-Haul Robot.

This flashback is packed with so much vital historical information. We learn that the consumer goods started calling themselves the Autobots, but the military hardware (that's Decepticons to you and me), who were born and bred for combat, started doing what came naturally and began fighting the Autobots. When you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail, yes? The Autobots, who we've known since the very first episode are not cut out for combat ("but we're not fighters like they are, Prime!" whines Huffer), resorted to drastic measures and invented the ability to transform as a means by which to subvert the Decepticons. Evidently it worked, because the Autobots were in control for centuries until the Decepticons finally copied the ability to transform.

Eventually, we learn, Megatron was created by the Constructicons. Eight of 'em, to be precise. This creates a pretty major contradiction, since "Heavy Metal War" establishes that Megatron built the Constructicons on Earth in 1984. This also flies in the face of the Constructicons existing as good guys millions of years ago on Cybertron, as seen in "The Secret of Omega Supreme." Short of somebody writing some crazy time travel fan fiction, there's no way to reconcile any of this.

The introduction of the Matrix, and its place in the canon as the talisman toted around by every Autobot leader, creates a hiccup when you take Alpha Trion into account. This episode sort of skirts the issue by claiming that after U-Haul Robot was killed by Megatron, Alpha Trion collected the Matrix, but rather than using it himself, he merely kept it hidden "until the next Autobot leader appeared." So, evidently the whole time that Megatron was waging the Third Cybertron War and tyrranizing Cybertron, the Autobots didn't have a leader at all until Optimus Prime finally came along. (Optimus Prime's face mask does not move at all when he speaks during the Matrix flashback, by the way.)

Rodimus awakens to Springer berating him and calling him names. Rodimus commands him to come along to Cybertron, which he realizes is in serious danger. "Yes, sir, mister leader, sir!" Springer quips.

What Rodimus doesn't realize is that it's not just Cybertron that's in danger. Never ones to mess around, the Quintessons are planning a two-pronged attack. The bulk of the Decepticon forces will invade Cybertron, while the Constructicons have been spending the night secretly rebuilding a human city, apparently right under their noses, into a new Decepticon battle station. This is a show about gigantic transforming robots from outer space, but this notion, in particular, strains credibility more than just about anything else in the series. None of the human population noticed the rumbling and jackhammering and drilling, really? Also, does this mean Trypticon is made of wooden joists and plaster and brick and glass? I just don't swallow it, sorry. (That's what she said.) This is the scene I was referring to, by the way, where Long Haul is colored like U-Haul Robot.

To infiltrate Cybertron, the Quintessons send out a fake distressed shuttle nearing Cybertron air space which allegedly needs to make an emergency landing. The supposed human pilot sounds exactly like Silverbolt. (Funny how Charlie Adler literally does one voice and yet he's doing voice directing nowadays.) Perceptor is being fairly pragmatic about it, wanting to refuse to let them land based on principal, but Kup is an old softie and lets his compassion get the better of him. ("Nah, my name's Quart and I'm Cybertron's chief bleeding heart liberal.") There are two versions of this scene: An early version which made it out to some European TV stations and on the "Five Faces of Darkness" VHS videocassette release, and a later one that was actually broadcast in the U.S., which includes additional dialogue from the so-called shuttle pilot ("Cybertron, do you read? Our engines have just gone critical!") and Cosmos ("come in on a 72-degree trajectory. Wait, where are you going?! Alert! Alert! Shuttle on a heading for Cybertron central power facility!") and a very strangely-voiced Quintesson ("our decoy worked! Cybertron is now helpless!"). All the new dialogue is added to characters off-screen, with no animation lip-synching, which suggests to me it was added in post-production, perhaps to make the scene slightly less ambiguous to younger viewers. The complete version was available on Rhino DVD, but the early version made it onto the Shout Factory release.

The Aerialbots rush to intercept (all of them colored off-white with blue cockpits), but they are unable to prevent the sabotage. With Cybertron's defensive grid down, there's nothing to stop a wave of Quintesson corkscrew ships. Decepticons pour from the ships, in scenes recycled from the beginning of the episode (Blitzwing colored like Air Raid makes another appearance). The "TO BE CONTINUED" titles actually appear at the end of this episode, unlike the others on the Shout Factory release. (Rhino had to rebuild pretty much all the titles from scratch, and the Shout Factory release uses the same DVD transfer, only without all the obnoxious sound effects added by Rhino and a handful of animation goofs swapped out with different footage.)

FIVE FACES OF DARKNESS PART 5

The recap for the previous episodes (which largely focuses on parts 3 and 4) has an alternate version of Galvatron's dialogue when he proclaims, "Very well, Junkions. Then you will share the Autobots' fate!" It sounds normal in the episode proper, but Frank Welker's voice isn't flanged when we hear the same line in the recap clip.

In the opening scene, we see Cybertron still has two Moon Bases. Mistake? Hard to say. Even the movie wasn't a hundred percent consistent about how many moons there were. The mass of Decepticons hovering above Cybertron consists entirely of troops designed like Cyclonus and Scourge, but they're colored like Wildrider, Breakdown, Swindle, Dirge, etc. As the Autobots briefly discuss their battle strategy, Springer is drawn identically to his animation model, and so is Ultra Magnus a moment later. The cel artists probably just traced the drawings.

On Earth, Trypticon has begun his attack on the Autobot volcano base, which is largely inhabited by Mini Autobots these days. It's nice to finally see Trypticon in action, though his debut appearance is kind of anti-climactic, since the animation is so poor and the Mini Autobots aren't anything close to a good match for him. We also get to see some of the new 1986 toys for the first time, with Pipes leading the group and Swerve, Tailgate, and Outback all making appearances in addition to old standbys like Warpath and Powerglide and Beachcomber and Bumblebee. (When Trypticon approaches the foxhole, I've always thought it was either Swerve or Tailgate who says, "It'll be passing above us soon!" We'll never know for sure, of course, since neither of them ever got any additional dialogue in the show, so there's no further voice performances to compare this one to.)

Speaking of voice performances, when we cut to Autobot City, Rewind and Eject are stationed right next to Blaster. Somebody (voiced by Neil Ross) asks, "Where is the transforming cog now?" and Blaster reports that it's still on Io, and that he's sending Sky Lynx to rescue the delivery team. "Whoops, wrong channel!" Blaster balks when some Quintessons appear on his viewscreen. "Thank you for the update," the Quintessons say, hinting that they're going to send more new 1986 toys into the fray. I've never been able to determine whether it was Eject asking about the transforming cog, or whether the Quintessons were sending a decoy message to Blaster to trick him into providing information. The request isn't muffled, as it might have been if it were coming over a radio transmission. Eject's got his back turned to us, so there's no way to know if his face mask is moving while speaking. Also, Eject gets no lines anywhere else in the show, so again, there's no way to confirm if Neil Ross was cast to perform him or not. So frustrating.

Regarding Sky Lynx and the Predacons: There's strong evidence that the Predacons were originally conceived by the writers as Autobots, since there's a lion-tiger-eagle-rhino-buffalo team of combiners called Anibots mentioned, but never realized, in an early version of The Transformers: the Movie. The characters never made it into the movie, but Hasbro must have liked the idea and eventually went ahead with the creation of the toys. I've read that the Japanese designer who was recruited to design Predaking later went on to create many of the Zords for the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers toy line by Bandai. In their earliest versions, it seems Predaking was an Autobot and Sky Lynx, the toy appropriated by Hasbro from Toy Box to counter him, was originally planned to be a Decepticon. An early model for Sky Lynx was still floating around the animation studios even after his allegiance switch, and Sky Lynx appears with a Decepticon symbol many, many times throughout the show.

Also, since this is the first appearance for the Predacons, and it's the Quintessons who send them into action, it would not be completely crazy to conclude that the Quintessons have built them. At the same time, though, Sky Lynx and Predaking seem to have some kind of shared history; Predaking makes comments about being well aware of Sky Lynx's overconfidence, and later episodes seem to suggest that they have a long-standing feud, which wouldn't really gel if they had only just met in this episode. So, who knows.

Giving Sky Lynx a cultured, sophisticated accent was a great move. I'm sure the natural inclination was to give him a deep, snarly, growly voice, but making him sound so upper-class creates a great juxtaposition against his creature-like design.

Back on Earth, the Mini Autobots are weoefull ineffective against Trypticon. Even the Constructicons seem to recognize this. "What's the point? We're superfluous!" Scrapper admits when the others want to join the fray. And then Scrapper's entire face mask disappears to reveal a vacant red face underneath. There's a fairly cheatsy scene where all the Mini Autobots have been outfitted with turret guns, like the one Outback has, just to give them some way of attacking Trypticon. Bumblebee's turret gun is bright yellow. (Oddly, Pretender Bumblebee actually would get a roof-mounted gun in 1989. Hmm.) There's a comical scene where Trypticon marches right up to Swerve and stomps him right into the ground, with only his head visible in the aftermath.

Warpath commands Teletraan I to defend itself, so a volley of automated guns emerges from hidden panels within the surface of the volcano. It's too little, too late, though, as Trypticon completely obliterates the volcano, reducing it to a pile of rubble along with Teletraan I and the Ark. Teletraan was just a computer, and arguably not a "real" character, but it's still upsetting to see him destroyed. We've seen the computer get demolished before (the Dinobots did it a couple of times in "S.O. S. Dinobots" and "Dinobot Island"; Thrust did it once in "Megatron's Master Plan," etc.) but Ratchet and Wheeljack were always able to put him back together. Well, Ratchet and Wheeljack are dead now. And so is Teletraan I.

On Cybertron, an entire squadron of Cyclonuses attacks from the air. Seriously, there has to be at least seven or eight of them. Dirge and Ramjet set their sights on Ultra Magnus, who responds by punching them to death. Seriously, he knocks them out of the air and they hit a wall and explode. I never would have accepted these as character deaths in seasons one or two, but this is season three, where all the rules have changed. (A character implied to be Dirge has a marker in the Decepticon crypt, as seen in "Starscream's Ghost," but Dirge and Ramjet also appear in episodes like "Thief in the Night." So, it's really hard to say.)

Galvatron and Ultra Magnus have a brief encounter in which the destruction of Magnus on the Planet of Junk is alluded to. "Why do you not flee? Did our last encounter teach you nothing?" Galvatron asks. "Not cowardice, certainly!" replies Ultra Magnus. (No, Ultra Magnus won't tremble in fear of Galvatron until "The Dweller in the Depths.")

Impossibly, Bumblebee is simultaneously fighting Trypticon on Earth and on Cybertron fending off the Decepticon squadron. Sandstorm also makes his first technical animated appearance, but he's colored like First Aid.

Galvatron sends Blitzwing to the Quintesson flagship to apprise them of how the battle is going. Once he arrives, though, he overhears Quintesson orders being given to the Sharkticons, who are ostensibly being delivered to Cybertron to look for the Decepticon Matrix. In actuality, there never was a Decepticon Matrix to begin with, and the true mission of the Sharkticons is that they are being sent to the depths of Cybertron to activate a killswitch that will deactivate all the Transformers. "You will find a large switch," the Quintessons instruct them. "Push it to the 'down' position. DOWN, understand?" You really have to spell things out for the Sharkticons.

On Io, the Predacons arrive, all dutifully appearing in their animation model poses, because it's far too hard to draw robots without tracing them. The whole battle between the Predacons and Sky Lynx feels long and drawn out, as if it were artificially lengthened just to bring the episode to its correct length. Maybe because they're playing the tired old "Skystrikers vs. Rattlers" battle theme we've heard in countless Transformers and G.I. Joe episodes. Maybe it's because the scene suffers from Voltron syndrome to an extent. The Voltron lions always tried to tackle the Ro-Beast of the week, failed, and then only combined together when the going got tough. Why didn't they just form the Blazing Sword right out of the gate and slash the Ro-Beast in half? It's kind of the same in this episode. The Predacons waste all this time engaging the Autobots in their individual forms and then combine into Predaking. Then Sky Lynx just comes along, wraps his tail around Predaking's head, and knocks him over, causing them to break apart into the Predacons. As soon as they break apart, they call the retreat. Why? Weren't they holding their own against Sky Lynx as the individual Predacons?

(Wheelie has a potty mouth, though, and shouts, "Olé, fucker!" at Tantrum, so that's something.)

As Trypticon approaches Autobot City, Blaster is just full of contradictions. They still lack the transforming cog, but Blaster is all, "One city transformed, comin' up! Cogless or not, we're gonna fight!" so Metroplex proceeds to transform to battle station mode. What is it about this mini-series establishing these clear rules (like "without the transformation cog, the city is unable to transform" only to violate them a moment later)? I don't get it.

As Sky Lynx approaches Earth, the Constructicons try to shoot him down and fail completely. Then Trypticon takes one glancing shot, with his tongue laser of all things, and Sky Lynx is completely disabled and hits the ground. Mixmaster, who has apparently been promoted to Constructicon leader, orders the other Decepticons from within Trypticon to inspect the remains of Sky Lynx and destroy the transforming cog. A badly-drawn Thrust and an even more badly-drawn Laserbeak emerge from Trypticon's chest. No, seriously, that's the worst-drawn Laserbeak in history. He's missing his legs and his head has no eyes or beak on it. It's like the animators just thought he was some vaguely bird-shaped jet.

Somehow the battle turns into a football game and the Autobots just start throwing the transformation cog back and forth. I'm surprised they didn't start playing some suitably goofy background music. Speaking of backgrounds, the matte paintings alternate between a blue Earth sky and a black, star-filled spacescape all throughout this sequence. When Motormaster tries to tackle Wheelie, his cab transforms into his robot mode and his trailer disappears into his back. Then an entire chorus line of Decepticons blocks Wheelie's path, including the probably-dead Kickback, Bombshell, and two (count 'em, two!) Shrapnels. Sky Lynx retrieves the cog, and from Autobot City, Frenzy and Dead End and two Constructicons cheer in delight. When it comes to the animation problems with this mini-series, you don't just suspend your disbelief, you have to outright expel it.

Blitzwing makes his way to Galvatron (with the recently punched-to-death Dirge and Ramjet flying through the background!) and reports on the Quintesson treachery. Galvatron is so power-mad that he refuses to listen. "Tell it to the Autobots!" he quips, in a reference to the old "tell it to the Marines (because the sailors won't believe you)" joke. Blitzwing takes the suggestion literally and seeks out Rodimus Prime to warn him of the Quintesson plot. Blitzwing has an Autobot symbol throughout most of the following scenes. It's as if his symbol changes as soon as he considers switching allegiances, Beast Wars style.

Pipes, who is a junk collector and warrior by trade, has apparently been tasked with installing the transforming cog. Metroplex is restored to full function and can finally change to robot mode, just as Trypticon approaches. I complained about Menasor's voice not being deep enough for part 1, and now I'm gonna do the opposite. Metroplex and Trypticon's voices are way too deep, to the point where you almost can't understand what they're saying. Of course, undo the artificial deepening, and Metroplex basically sounds just like Predaking (as he does in "Thief in the Night").

Even the fight between Metroplex and Trypticon feels anti-climactic somehow. The humans evacuate their nearby city so quickly and neatly that there's basically no collateral damage, and Metroplex just picks up Trypticon and throws him into the ocean before the battle has hardly even begun. Trypticon appears to short-circuit as he hits the water, because he's made from office buildings and residential homes that were never meant to be submersed. At Metroplex's feet, Cliffjumper-colored-like-Jazz and Ratchet-colored-like-Blaster and Sunstreaker-colored-like-Bumblebee all celebrate. (Sunstreaker will legitimately appear later in "Fight or Flee." I tend to think he's one of the few 1984 characters who didn't actually die.)

The Sharkticons reach the secret chamber inside Cybertron. "Push... down..." parrots a Sharkticon, in one of the few instances of them actually speaking. Rodimus, Blitzwing, and Spike intercept them just in time, chasing them away. Rodimus invites Blitzwing to join the Autobots, but just then Galvatron interferes and just totally ruins everything. "Surely you're not searching for something that doesn't exist," Galvatron reasons. "Perhaps you hope to find the Matrix for yourself!" and with that, Galvatron throws the switch himself! With that, every single Transformer everywhere is frozen solid. It's like Wheeljack's Instant Immobilizer on a mass scale. Even Transformers who were not created by the Quintessons, like the Constructicons and Dinobots and Stunticons and Galvatron, are instantly shut down.

The Quintessons celebrate their success. "Your war is over, Transformers!" they taunt as they patrol their reclaimed factory planet. They hadn't counted on Spike, however, who grabs Rodimus Prime's gun out of his gigantic metal hand and, slinging it over his shoulder like a bazooka, blasts the nullification machine. The Quintessons flee to an escape pod, with an enraged Galvatron in hot pursuit. They manage to escape.

It's actually Blitzwing who announces the end of the battle, training his gun on Galvatron. "You will never be welcome in the ranks of the Decepticons again!" Galvatron warns him. "Sometimes it's better to be known for one's enemies," Blitzwing says. It's very deep. I don't really understand what it means, but it's very deep. Blitzwing is officially kicked out of the Decepticon ranks. A follow-up episode would have shown that Blitzwing befriended Springer, but that he was still being hunted by Galvatron. Hasbro asked that the characters be swapped out for newer toys like Octane and Sandstorm instead, so Octane was inexplicably introduced as a Decepticon traitor. Then they had to write "Thief in the Night" to explain just what it was that Octane did to arouse Galvatron's ire.

The Autobots are left not with the happy victory you typically expected to accompany the cheerful victory trumpets, but a lopsided victory in which they've managed to keep a foothold on Cybertron and Earth, but now they have to content with the fact that their creators want them dead. It's a dark and mature conclusion that you just don't expect from a kids' show like this.

"Five Faces of Darkness" essentially sets up the world that the rest of the third-season episodes will take place in. It establishes the Quintessons as a formidable threat that will reappear to harass the Transformers in numerous episodes, and also sets the stage for future appearances from the Skuxxoid and Marissa Fairborne and, yes, Abdul Fakkadi. Yes, it's rather poorly animated and has an unforgivable number of mistakes. It's a mostly solid mini-series, though, and remains one of the most important parts of the series overall.


Zob

Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats

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May 15, 2015, 3:56:06 AM5/15/15
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From the opening credits, the care of the animators and the quality of their work is immediately clear -- Blitzwing sits next to many copies of himself, and Springer is colored as Kup. I'm willing to bet that the Blitzwings were intentional, because they are cool, but Kup-Springer is kind of embarrassing.

Oh, wait, that's the regular Season 3 opening. The DVD release that is ripped onto my hard drive only has the special FFoD opening on episodes 3 and 5, which is yet another example to the attention to detail and quality that plagues this story.

A Rockaroid opens to reveal countless mechanical arms, an Autobot logo chases a Decepticon logo over the surface of Cybertron, the Decepticon logo drops a tiny energon cube and a miscolored Shockwave (tan, with a blue windshieldish part and a black head) dives onto it, only to be tackled by a purple Frenzy/Rumble and then a bunch of other miscolored characters including a white Astrotrain, the Autobots shoot the weakened Decepticons and then burst into flame, Galvatron climbs out of a pit of lava or mud and then shoots a planet out of the sky, Trypticon transforms in front of Daniel on Cybertron, Metroplex comes to the rescue, Kup and Ultra Magnus walk backwards into a pit of butterscotch pudding filled with Sharkticons, more logo dancing, Autobots are stuck in goo, Rodimus gets sucked off (the planet of Goo, into a vacuum cleaner).

It's a pretty impressive opening.

We open the first episode with the visual treat of Unicron exploding, his head orbiting Cybertron. And then voice overs with new animation, explaining the new status quo. The sky above Chaar is pretty wacky, with the planet orbited by a mechanical moon and a star, going in opposite directions. Overall, that voice over was more pleasing than the terrible, terrible movie.

The Decepticons are in terrible shape -- fighting over the Energon that Astrotrain is able to bring back, and barely able to transform. We get a brief glimpse of the Insecticons.

Cyclonus and some Sweeps land, and he scolds everyone for being kind of a weak pansy, unlike in the days of Galvatron. Astrotrain says that things were better under Megatron, and Cyclonus says "You mean Galvatron!" and everyone gives a Nazi salute.

Astrotrain says "Well, they were the same guy", and then the entire issue is glossed over for the rest of the series. It's a shame, as it would have been interesting to see how the old Decepticons really reacted to having this new guard taking over.

Meanwhile, on some mysterious planet somewhere, there are Galactic Olympics, hosted by Rodimus Prime, who fails to make any kind of impressive speech. On Earth(?), Warpath points out that they sure do have an unusual leader, in case anyone failed to notice.

The race that Jazz is taking part in has a large number of Transformers in it, and only a Transformer could possibly win it, as there are large chunks of race track broken up by obstacle courses that can only be done in robot mode. The other contestants are either other species that transform, or from other lost colonies of transformers or Rodimus Prime is presiding over games that are rigged and Cybertron entered a half dozen candidates.

Meanwhile, Perceptor has a mission for Blurr and Wheelie -- taking Autobot City's new transformation cog. The original was damaged in the battle on Earth. Also, Wheelie is absolutely wrong. This ostensibly explains why Autobot City didn't transform into Metroplex during the movie. It's a little odd to see Perceptor ordering other robots about, but at least he is sending away the two most hateful Autobots into what is hopefully a death trap.

Jazz wins the race, and the announcer says that the winner is so-and-so from the Argon Cluster. Arcee, Springer, Ultra Magnus and Rodimus cheer gleefully congratulating whoever it was that was awarded Jazz's medal. Meanwhile, sinister creatures in shadow are watching the entire thing on television, and the viewer is watching that!

"Autobots! You walk the thin line between glory and despair" one of the creatures says, doubtless referencing the entirely insane judge's decision to not give the first place finish to Jazz. "We must learn what makes these human's live and what makes them perish." The creatures are effectively ominous.

We now have the introduction of one of my favorite characters -- the Skuxxoid. He's just kind of sitting there in an alley, when the antennas on his helmet blink. You can see that he is wearing some kind of chastity belt, with a keyhole on his crotch. He picks up a radio like device, and uses it to beam something at the olympic fire, causing it to burst into a modest inferno and shower people with glowing things and smoke.

A corkscrew ship flies over head and ejects a pod, which appears to be the size of a hand grenade. In the shadows we can see fat robots climb out and be all menacing, as they scurry across the cracks in the dirt -- and appear to be about two centimeters tall each. There is a commercial break as one looms over the Witwickys revealing that they are actually quite large, but the bumper features a transforming Sharkticon, so there's no real suspense as to who it is.

Battle battle, fight fight. It's a bit surprising that no one gets killed in the crossfire, since this is a large sporting event, now covered in smoke, where there is a laser battle. There should be dozens of dead civilians. Really, the Olympic Marshall's seat of honor now has enraged Autobots firing wildly into the smoke.

Springer blows up the Olympic torch, once Arcee is able to stop the invaders from shooting by gunning one of them down, and now we discover that the villains have disappeared, taking Kup, Ultra Magnus and Spike. So, Rodimus quarantines the planet, using the powers of Olympic Marshall to declare Marshall Law, and then vows to trash every Decepticon in the galaxy if they don't find the missing.

The quarantine is short lived, as a ship bursts from the ground and flies away. Arcee and Springer drive off to find a ship to chase them, and Rodimus begins his season long lament at being the chosen one.

Meanwhile, Blurr and Wheelie are leaving Cybertron on a ship, and Wheelie points out Unicron's head, failing to notice Cyclonus standing next to the eye socket, and Sweeps crawling across his face. Perhaps Wheelie is just unwilling to acknowledge Cyclonus in purple and pink. Of course, this isn't Cyclonus as all, but some form of female Decepticon -- Sheclonus? Nah. Cardicia, named after the Roman goddess of entryways, Cardea.

The Sweeps are skittish when they climb through Unicron's eye socket, but Cyclonus reassures them that Unicron is dead, just before Unicron moans. "It must be the wind!" Cyclonus says. "There is no wind is space" a sweep replies. Clearly, space is filled with still air.

The interior of Unicron continues to surprise me, with video monitors, control panels, and generally all the accoutrements that you would expect in some kind of vessel. I am completely convinced that Unicron was designed for passengers or a crew.

Cyclonus pulls a lever, and then commands one of the computers to find Galvatron, and then sends Scourge out to find the planet he landed on. This planet either cannot shape itself into a sphere with its own gravity, or at least will not. It is an odd misshapen thing, surrounded by weird irregular arcs of orange stuff.

Galvatron is in a lava or mud bath, snoring, with one hand up.

Meanwhile, in the Democratic People's Racist Republic of Carbombya, Blaster and Outback have arrived to say such things as "Hold your cool, Abdul". Col. Fakkadi accuses the Autobots of fanaticism. The astute observer will note that Blaster and Outback are travelling in the ship that looks a whole lot like the ship that broke through the ground at the Olympics and violated quarantine.

Outback's handy fake Decepticon detector makes some noise, so Ramjet and Dirge fly off. Outback throws a small explosive device, which appears to wipe out an entire valley, and causes the Decepticons to crash. The Autobots get the coordinates of Chaar, and then must just release the Decepticons because nothing ever comes of this.

At the Olympic Grounds, Perceptor is investigating the remains of one of the fallen Sharkticons. Rodimus believes it is the Decepticons, but Perceptor says there is no evidence to support this. Rodimus wants to go to Charr.

Arcee and Springer are pursuing the Skuxxoid, who is in a ship that doesn't resemble the one that left the Olympics at all. The Skuxxoid hides behind an asteroid, but it turns out to be a spaceship. The asteroid spaceship also has a claw that comes out and grabs the Autobot ship and begins to crush it.

Commercial break.

Arcee shoots a hole in the side of the ship, and she and Springer leap to the surface of the Rockaroid below. They stroll about the surface, hear some Skuxxoid grumbling, and shoot a hole in the Rockaroid and hop inside where they confront the Skuxxoid.

The Skuxxoid promptly surrenders, but Springer is playing bad cop and threatens to kill him anway. The Skuxxoid spills all, backing towards a hole to escape. And he's gone.

Springer cannot really fly a Rockaroid, and the Skuxxoid phones his employers and discovers that his payment is to be allowed to live. One hopes the Skuxxoid finds better employers in the future, as he probably has a family to feed.

Meanwhile, on Charr, Decepticons grumble, and Cyclonus and the Sweeps arrive begging for energon to rescue Galvatron. "Giiiive, my fellow Decepticons, give til it hurts!" he bellows, like a TV preacher.

All of this is watched by Rodimus, Grimlock and Perceptor, who are standing on a pillar. Rodimus comments that the Decepticons can't be responsible, because they are in such terrible shape. And then Grimlock laughs at their suffering, and the vibrations of his laughter cause the pillar to begin to give way. The Decepticons see them and start firing as they slip and fall and come tumbling down.

--- end episode one ---

This is a very, very strong opening. There are mysterious attackers, and the new status quo is well established by the end of the episode. The weakness of the Decepticons is never really explained -- they were defeated during that terrible movie, but they weren't brought to this low, and there are plenty of inhabited worlds they could oppress for resources. It's odd that they would all retreat to Charr, rather than scatter to the far ends of the galaxy to make their own way and sell their services (as mercenaries, or prostitutes, whatever....).

We get a good sense of Rodimus Prime -- impulsive, quick to judge, and equally quick to revise his judgements when new information is available.

Arcee and Springer appear to work well as a reckless team of Autobots, ready to jump into action without a moment's hesitation or even forethought.

Wheelie, Blurr, Kup and Ultra Magnus haven't really been given moments to shine yet. The first two don't really have the capability of shining, and the latter two are given only a few lines each to establish them. Kup was like Rodimus before he got blown up a few times, and Ultra Magnus is a bit conservative and concerned with form.

--- and onto the next episode ---

Hey, Cardicia appears in the opening for season 3! Woo-hoo, you go girl! (Ok, she is probably meant to be Cyclonus in shadows, but the bright pink details just don't work).

We get a recap from the same voice actor who does the files of Teletraan 1 later on, and Rodimus and Grimlock continue to fall down the side of the pillar into the hordes of underpowered Decepticons below. How did they get on top of that pillar? Did they land their ship on a pillar, or did they see the pillar and then climb it for half an hour?

Rodimus makes fun of Grimlock's speech impediment. Optimus would never do that.

The Decepticons don't have the energy to kill the Autobots with their weapons. This might explain the entire TV series and the Decepticon's inability to kill anyone -- just not enough Energon. They stockpile it for the movie, and then kill like mad. This does not explain why the Autobots' weapons are useless right now.

The Decepticons are pounding on the Autobots with the butts of their guns, when a fireball appears in the sky, hurtling towards their location. The Decepticons retreat.

And it is Springer and Arcee in the Rockaroid to the rescue. Various Decepticons make disparaging remarks about those miserable Skuxxoids, including Swindle who says that they would sell out to anyone for the right price. I guess this means that our friendly Skuxxoid is not The Skuxxoid, and that there are others. I was sort of hoping that just as Unicron, Primus and The Fallen are multiversal singularities, The Skuxxoid would also be one, existing in every universe simultaneously, and just failing.

Cyclonus takes a pot shot at Rodimus, who is dangling from a Rockaroid claw, and then he and the Sweeps gather up the energon and leave to fetch Galvatron. Those who care about the previous identity of Cyclonus, Scourge and the Sweeps (and the Armada) are probably very confused by these scenes as all of the candidates are probably all standing around live and well. To me, it never made a difference as there is nothing in the previous personalities that informs the characterization of these new characters.

Meanwhile, Kup is interrogated by the Quintessons, who are eager to learn about Cybertron's defenses, and are calculating very low probabilities of truth in his transparent lies. They may have mind-reading powers -- Ultra Magnus thinks so, and some of the dialogue of the Quintessons suggests so as well. This is not developed further in the show.

Spike notices that they are not so eager to interrogate him, and the Quintessons then explain that the human's intuitiveness presents challenges.

The Rockaroid lands on a crescent shaped planet, which probably sneaks around the galaxy pretending to be a waxing or waning moon, even when fully lit. And everyone steps out to watch Rodimus die. There is a lot of discussion of life force, which Arcee can clearly detect, suggesting that she might have once held a role of medic. Rodimus follows the standard Autobot practice of offering the leadership of the Autobots to whomever is standing next to them that they happen to like -- a combination of nepotism and location. And, Arcee is passed over once again, probably because she is female. The Matrix of Leadership is a boys club, which is probably why most female Autobots want to have nothing to do with the males. They probably all live on some kind of female Cybertron and have some kind of female Matrix.

After a commercial break, a cold wind blows across the weird crescent planet, and Rodimus is still dead. Grimlock insists that he must be alive, since there is no Matrix of Leadership popping out, and Springer concedes that Grimlock must be right. The alternative is to cut him open and pry the Matrix out.

We are then treated to a psychedelic dream sequence with Quintesson overtones, until Rodimus awakes, refreshed. Grimlock now proclaims his love for Arcee, which is uncomfortable for her, as every single male transformer will do it at least once.

Rodimus explains that he was inside the matrix, and now he knows about the Quintessons, and why they put him on trial. And so, they will head to Quintessa.

Meanwhile, on Quintessa, Spike, Kup and Ultra Magnus attempt to escape, and capture Judge Deliberata by grabbing him by the tentacles. Spike manages to get the blaster from one of the guards, and it mysteriously shrinks to his hand. There's a hostage situation, but the Quintessons will not negotiate with terrorists, so they sentence everyone to death, including the hostage, who praises the wisdom of this judgement.

And so, our heroes are in a Sharkticon pit, and the Quintessons announce that they like to watch. The Sharkticons are actually adorable.

And on whatever that planet is, Thrall, Cyclonus, Scourge and the Sweeps rescue Galvatron. Galvatron seems reasonably pleased with this turn of events -- he's laughing at any rate. The insane leader of Galvatron will be one of my least favorite parts of Season 3, as it removes a lot of his moral culpability. Megatron was a lot of things -- petty, cruel, incompetent, a terrible strategist, and completely without any grand cause other than his own power, but he wasn't insane.

Megatron then proceeds to beat up his rescuers. He is such a terrible character.

Over Quintessa, Hot Rod recognizes the wreckage of the ship he and Kup were shot down in (well, the rear section at least), and then decides that the obviously Quintessa looking planet must be Quintessa. I mean, the planet is a lot more distinctive that the wreckage.

And back on Quintessa, Spike asks some questions and learns that the Autobots were found guilty of stealing Cybertron. And, Kup does a great Ultra Magnus impression -- if you didn't know better, you would think Ultra Magnus was speaking one of his lines, but lo and behold it is Kup's lips that move. Why does Kup do this? Because he is a dick.

But the Quintessons detect Hot Rod approaching with the Matrix and are completely distracted. So they blow up the Rockaroid.

By the way, Quintessons sitting in chairs is just a weird look. They don't need chairs to relax, they need egg cups or something.

Galvatron continues to abuse the Sweeps and Cyclonus to demonstrate that he is obviously insane. Then they leave, with Galvatron taking a moment to destroy the planet. This is probably what I remembered when I thought that Galvatron blew up Web World. Galvatron is massively powerful.

And on Quintessa, Springer is flying in to the rescue with Grimlock dangling off a landing gear, Arcee striking a pose on one side, and Rodimus crouching on the other. Somehow neither Arcee nor Hot Rod are getting their head smacked by Springer's rotor.

Fight, fight, shoot shoot. Springer can lift Arcee, Rodimus, Ultra Magnus, Kup, Spike and a Quintesson hostage. That's a lot.

The Quintessons blow up their planet to destroy the Autobots, but the Autobots are rescued by the Aerialbots, who are flying a ship that looks like Fireflight, but is so huge that all the Aerialbots fit inside, even when Silverbolt is transformed into an oversized jet capable of hauling Transformers. I see TFWiki claims this is Broadside, which I guess makes sense, since he is an aircraft the size of an aircraft carrier.

--- end episode 2 ---

Galvatron's introduction really weakens this episode, because he is so incredibly lame. His abuse of his troops, and his willingness to destroy his troops, is

Lots of things happen, and we get a bit of a deepening mystery with the Matrix, and some answers about the Quintessons. Overall, it is an episode.

I do love the Quintessons though, and they are in fine form.

--- episode 3 ---

Broadside is blown up, and the Autobots are adrift in space. No one seems to be bothered by the death of Broadside, and he shows up later so he might be Broadside's identical twin brother.

I am a little disappointed that the Aerialbots do not fly around in a ship that resembles a giant version of one of them. And every time they have to replace the ship, they could switch who gets to be the model. I suspect what's-his-name with the Rolls Royce chest would probably keep destroying everyone else's giant replica ship.

We see Hot Rod, Kup, Springer, Ultra Magnus and Silverbolt, along with Spike. Rodimus suggests that they relax and enjoy the ride. There are times when I don't like the portrayal of Rodimus, and this is one of them -- later in the season, he has a bit of a weariness that wears better than the brash cockiness. The cockiness is always there, but it's more of an act than anything, as he tries (and fails) to hide his insecurities.

Meanwhile, Galvatron is getting a report from someone about the humans having a defensive space station. He seems amused by the prospect of hairless apes in space, and decides that they must immediately divert to see this spectacle. Luckily, they are right next to a space gate.

The space gate is never explained, is it? Someone built these things, someone with technology on par with the Decepticons in 1984, but we never learn who. Are we supposed to conclude it was the Quintessons?

Autobots continue to float. Ultra Magnus determines that they will collide with an object 200,000km away, but he can't tell if it is a planet or a ship or what. Rodimus points out that they will either be saved or splattered.

Galvatron and his Decepticon Kill Krew emerge from the space gate, and are seen by the likes of Blurr and Wheelie. Unfortunately, this means that we are treated to another scene between the two of them, and it is weird vocal ticks galore. They conclude that the ship is broken, since it cannot possibly be Galvatron. It's a difficult scene to sit through. I hate Blurr the way most people hate Wheelie.

They contact the humans on the space station, who are also not pleased with their weird vocal ticks. The humans have great uniforms, but we will probably learn that they are still building the station and this is the 2005 equivalent of tan shirt, blue pants and yellow boots. The humans suggest the Autobots flee to Earth.

And then Galvatron attacks. He can be seen firing on the video screen in the ship, and then the other side of the ship explodes. I actually really like that.

Galvatron then destroys the space station, probably killing every man, woman and child on board. One appears to survive briefly. He will drift through space, desperately hoping someone rescues him before he runs out of air and suffocates in his space suit, desperately wishing that he could at least scratch his nose and get rid of that itch before he dies. Imagine, floating through space, knowing you are almost certainly going to die, being completely unable to scratch an itch, and knowing that that itch will likely be the last thing you feel.

And then the chase is on, with Galvatron hunting Blurr and Wheelie, and Blurr and Wheelie not shutting up about it. The Autobots really needed someone who spoke in fake Middle English with lots of Thees, Thous, Verilys and Forsooths to round out this scene. And maybe someone with an asthmatic cough, or the guy who used to do the commercials for Carvel Ice Cream with Fudgie The Whale who always sounded like was about to cough up a glob of mucus the size of a baseball.

It took until the 2007 movie for us to get a Transformer that had his voice box torn out, but I was wishing for it over twenty years before.

They pass through one of the rings of Jupiter, which is filled with large rocky asteroids, and then get a glancing shot by Galvatron and go plummeting towards the gas giant. Perhaps they are near Saturn. The space bridge is past Pluto. There was either an astrological convergence in 2006, or they are bouncing all over the solar system travelling many, many times faster than light (rather than the many times faster than light that they would otherwise need to travel).

Galvatron demands that the Sweeps go after them, and bring back some souvenirs. He specifically requests heads, but he would probably be ok with a t-shirt. Or a crushed laser core.

Meanwhile, on Earth, which has acquired a second moon, Blaster is wishing everyone a good morning. "Good morning, good morning...:" he says, and then pauses and adds "Uh oh, we got a warning." Given that he speaks in rhyme, one must wonder what he was going to rhyme with "morning" before they got a warning. "Good morning, good morning, Optimus is still dead and we are mourning!" Blaster seems to get a pass from everyone in the fandom for his incessant rhymes. "Good morning, good morning, now listen to my scorning! I don't want any of you talking weird, and by the Matrix don't grow a beard. New characters give us enough of that shit, and if they keep it up I am bound to quit!"

Baster orders everyone to their stations, and then contacts the folks on Mars, and we get our first introduction to Marissa Faireborne. She's just been sitting around tracking an Autobot shuttle being pursued by a bunch of Decepticons. She is encouraged to proceed with all due speed, and she shouts "On my way!" and heroically presses a small button on a console, and launches her ship.

No one knows about the poor man floating in space, slowly dying.

Blurr starts speaking, so Wheelie grabs the transformation cog and hits the autoeject. In space, no one can hear you scream, so it seems like a reasonable attempt to get away from Blurr's inane babbling. Blurr follows. Wheelie looks oddly serene in his ejector seat launching into space.

Galvatron blows up the Autobot shuttle, so obviously the seats Wheelie and Blurr were sitting in disappear between scene cuts. I believe they were some form of hologram and force-field structure, rather than actual seats, which would explain their disappearance. Also, it makes sense when you think about it -- Transformers have so much variation in body shapes, particularly on their backs where all the leftover alt-mode parts go, that their furniture would need to be able to adapt to nearly any body shape. Holograms and force fields seem like the simplest solution. We know they have holograms -- Hound is a walking hologram factory -- and I believe the Stunticons are simply Earth cars held together with force shields.

Wheelie and Blurr plummet to their likely deaths. Cyclonus even says "Mightly Galvatron, the Autobots' destruction is assured." Galvatron professes his continued desire for a souvenier, and shoots Wheelie. Wheelie than spins and shoot a Sweep in the face. The Sweep then plummets to his death, begging for someone to save him. Galvatron explains that he despises whiners, and requests that the Sweep meet his end with dignity, and although the Sweep considers this advice, he chooses to decline to follow it, whining all the way down with a complete lack of dignity.

Galvatron fires once again at the Autobots tumbling to their doom, and misses, hitting a pocket of explosive gas.

Everyone other than Galvatron seems displeased with the explosive gas, but Galvatron gloats.

And now we get some Quintessons. "How pleasant the feeling to know that the Autobots and their Matrix have been destroyed." They are watching the destruction of Quintessa on loop. Unsure of how to celebrate, one suggests a quiet chuckle. The motion carries, and so the Quintessons chuckle. I love the Quintessons.

Their quiet chuckle is rudely interrupted by a scanner bleeping, and images of Rodimus, Grimlock, Arcee, Springer, Kup and Silverbolt (and Spike!) floating through space. At least the rest of the Aerialbots are dead, right? So a motion to suspend chuckling is introduced, seconded, and passed, and the Quintessons notice that the Autobots are heading towards Goo #8739B, and they will have to do something to get them killed. They need power and forces. "However grave the risk," one says, "we must form an alliance with the Decepticons." The scene is cut short before another Quintesson questions whether they can really trust anyone whose faction name is based on the word "deception". If anyone is going to notice that in-continuity, it would be the Quitessons.

Meanwhile, Rodimus and company land on Goo and go splat. They survive, of course, but they make a splat sound. They all complain about the sticky material of the planet until Spike makes the embarrassing revelation that he used to stick stuff like this under his seat at school, and that he liked it.

Kup makes some awkward grunting sounds and then pulls the face of their Quintesson hostage out of the goo. It's the death face, and it retains sentience separated from the rest of the Quintesson, and is complaining about his dignity. This is deeply weird. Do all Quintesson faces have their own lives? Are the bulbous things we think of as Quintessons really just a small colony of face creatures? Kup asks none of these questions and tosses the face back into the goo. Kup then decides that fate must be tempted and says that while it isn't an oil bath, all things considered, it could be worse.

A giant vacuum cleaner garbage scout thing is coming along, slurping things off the surface. Silverbolt tries to fly over it, but they learn that they can move in the goo, but not out of it.

Meanwhile, the hateful Blurr and the less hateful Wheelie are blasted out of the gas giant onto a moon.

And we switch to the Decepticons, who have not seen the survival of the Hated Duo. Cyclonus needles Galvatron "Mighty Galvatron, where are there heads?" So Galvatron punches him and says it doesn't matter since their destruction is assured, echoing Cyclonus' own argument previously. Except now, because of Galvatron's actions, the Autobots have escaped. The Decepticons start a trip to Charr.

Back on Goo, Springer transforms and tries to get out, but is slurped into the garbage scout. He is destroyed, torn to pieces. Arcee screams like a little girl and Rodimus says "Gross", because girls have cooties.

And now it is after Rodimus.

Meanwhile, on Charr, the Quintesson's spiral ship lands, digging into the surface. I love those Quintesson spiral ships. The Quintessons come bearing energon, and the Decepticons are wary, but more hungry. They pile onto the cubes making eating noises.

Meanwhile, on Goo, Rodimus is still in danger. "Forget everything I ever told you about heroism," Kup yells, "Run!" Kup was never much of a hero. Look at everyone he left behind in "Chaos". Rodimus grabs some goo and jams up the works on the vacuum, causing the garbage thing to pull itself to the surface and then stop.

"I've seen a lot of brave Autobots do a lot of brave things in my time," Kup says, "but nothing like that." He has never seen an Autobot do something like that and survive, at any rate.

"This is impossible!" The Quintesson hostage says, now with his death face attached. "You were never programmed for self sacrifice!"

I really want to know how that face got attached again.

Back on Charr, the Quintessons are making a deal. They will give the Decepticons energon if the Decepticons kill the Autobots. The Decepticons say yes.

Onslaught asks how they can attack Cybertron, when the defenses are so strong. The rest of the Combaticons and Bruticus all agree with his assessment. Some will say that this is an animation error, but I am certain it means that there is a tiny Bruticus wandering about -- he might be formed on tiny Combaticons, or he might be an Action Master with a similar body type -- like Omega Spreem.

The Quintessons suggest attacking elsewhere. And Blitzwing, drunk on energon, slurring his speech into a growl says "They lie!" Blitzwing has vague memories of Quintessons, but cannot remember.

Since the Quintessons have mind reading powers over Transformers in this story, could they be confusing Blitzwing's mind right now? Maybe. Dead End says they have nothing to lose though, and who can argue with an optimistic Dead End? Also, Air Raid is sitting there. Motormaster suggests a vote, and everyone but Blitzwing votes yes. Not sure what Air Raid's vote was actually.

The Quintessons mention that the Decepticons' programs are not nearly as tainted as the Autobots.

Galvatron arrives just in time to not see the Quintessons leave with all the rest of the Decepticons. He is unimpressed with Charr. He is also followed by some nicely colored Sweeps. The find Blitzwing along on Charr, and Blitzwing fills them in. Galvatron vows to kill the Quintessons and reunite the Decepticons.

Marissa Faireborne is investigating the metallic objects expelled from Jupiter that crash landed on Io. And Blurr and Wheelie will not stop talking. Hopefully the radioactive lizard space gophers with acid for saliva will shut them up.

On Goo, the Autobots under Rodimus's command have a plan to turn off the goo, but they are attacked by Decepticons pouring out of a corkscrew ship. And a Quintesson ominously says that the Decepticons are taking the first steps to their own destruction.

--- end episode 3 ---

This episode has way too much Blurr. And Wheelie. And multiple sets of Autobots hurtling through space. But, cliffhangers galore here!

--- onwards to episode 4 ---

The summary of previous episodes say that Goo is the stickiest planet in the universe, but given that this is Goo #8739B, I assume that there are about 10,000 other planets at least as sticky.

We open with the Decepticons attacking the Autobots on Goo, and there is a particularly nice gray Seeker here. The Decepticon blast appear to bounce harmlessly off our heroes, so we know that the Quintessons did not bother to give them enough energon to get the job done.

The Quintesson hostage is complaining, and has his death face back. It must have crawled out of the Goo and back onto the Quintesson's body. One thing more disturbing than faces that can be detached and still talk is faces that can crawl of their own volition.

The Decepticons attack is blunted when the Decepticons are attacked by Galvatron, Cyclonus and the Sweeps. I always expected that there would be more resentment among the old Decepticons at the dominance of the newer ones, but given how Galvatron treated his honor guard, I guess that might have made things equal.

The older Decepticons, and a few Aerialbots, all begin to shout "Hail Galvatron!" although Swindle asks what Galvatron can give them that the Quintessons cannot. And so Galvatron goes off to have a word with the Quintessons.

Meanwhile, Rodimus questions why they haven't been killed yet, and Ultra Magnus explains it is because of a lack of discipline making even the simplest task (killing all of them) impossible. Ultra Magnus is disappointed in the Decepticons, and obviously hopes that Rodimus will learn from their failures, should he ever need to exterminate a small number of enemies while outnumbering them ten to one.

And there are a lot of Decepticons here. Lots of Decepticons that we have never seen before and will never see again. There are many possible reasons for this, from events in our world (incompetent animators working on the biggest story of the season), to more plausible events in the Transformers universe. I like to think that the Decepticons on Charr had been slowly gathering Decepticons from across the galaxy (or that the Season 1 and 2 Decepticons had joined a somewhat down on their luck colony of Decepticons, whichever), and that once Cyclonus brought them Galvatron many of them fled for their own safety. Or Galvatron killed them because he is insane.

So, Rodimus and Ultra Magnus enter the garbage ship, and discover that nothing is working except for the TVs. Rodimus has a feeling, and adjusts the TV to get more novelty voiced characters in the plot -- Wreck Gar and the the Junkeons! Rodimus translates the Junkeon Jibberish into English for the benefit of Ultra Magnus and the audience.

Given the number of novelty voiced characters in Season 3, it really is surprising that I like it. I hate the novelty voices.

Meanwhile, over a planet that looks suspiciously like Cybertron, Marissa Faireborne calls Blaster and lets him know that she has entered Jupiter's magnetic field. They banter briefly, and Marissa thinks she might have found Blurr and Wheelie. It's hard to tell though, because the radioactive space gophers can fly and are swarming them. She suspects that something might be very wrong.

On the moon (Io, I believe), the hideous shrieks of the flying radioactive space gophers provides a respite from Wheelie and Blurr talking. Wheelie heroically gives up on life and throws the cog to Blurr -- "Take the cog, you're faster. Save Metroplex from disaster!" -- and then collapses to his knees to await death's sweet embrace at the fangs of the flying radioactive space gophers with acid drool.

Marissa lands and now Blurr has a choice -- save the cog or save Wheelie. He chooses poorly, trying to rescue Wheelie, to the strong disapproval of Marissa, who just wants Wheelie to die, and comments that her digital watch is smarter.

And Blurr and Wheelie are smacking at radioactive flying space gophers. So, Marissa uses her jetpack to get over there and start shooting them.

The gophers are Transformers! They transform into missiles and try to kill her. She is shooting them with null rays, which make them explode. Blurr says something and she demands he shut up and get to the ship. But the gopher-missiles blow up the ship before they could get to it. If only the gophers had waited a little longer.

Marissa is bossy enough to make Blurr shut up. She is hot-headed and cannot control her temper or her nagging. Nothing like a nice bit of sexism to round out a scene.

Meanwhile, Galvatron shoots the Quintesson ship, and then enters to introduce himself. The Quintessons tell him lies of the Decepticon Matrix of Leadership. They shrewdly say that they will only tell him more if he kills the Autobots on Goo. At the word "Autobots" Galvatron loses all interest in anything other than attacking the Autobots. SQUIRREL!

And so, Galvatron attacks. And the Autobots and Spike fall through Goo because the Junkeons are melting it from the other side in a rescue effort. It's a daring rescue attempt that goes off perfectly without a hitch. Also, the Junkeons get all the garbage from Goo and spit out the Quintesson.

Galvatron responds by blowing up Goo. He should have just done that while the Autobots were on it. Goo is less of a planet than well packed large intestine in space.

This is the second planet he has blown up. Who would win, Galvatron or the Death Star?

Galvatron returns to the Quintesson ship, where he gives a rousing speech. He hates Autobots, he hates disloyalty more, and he hates failure even more. He blames the Quintessons.

The Quintessons argue that if he destroys them he will never learn of the Decepticon Matrix of Leadership, but that there is a 77% chance he doubts its existence, but that he cannot doubt they would make powerful allies to destroy the Autobots!

And it is SQUIRREL! all over again. Galvatron loses his focus and wants to know why the Quintessons don't just kill the Autobots themselves. And the Quintessons explain that their associate with the humans has changed them.

Galvatron finds this amusing, but, squirrel, so a partnership is formed to destroy the Autobots and the humans. The Quintesson that was the Autobots hostage seems to have joined this scene (hard to be sure, but now there are four), but none of the Season 1 or 2 Decepticons have.

Wait, I typed too soon, they were all out of frame. I see Octane, Soundwave, a Seeker, and two Shockwaves painted to look like Contructicons. They hail Galvatron. And then the Quintessons also hail Galvatron, lifting their tiny tentacles up.

The Quintessons must have lost track of the Autobots, and only found them again recently. Perhaps they noticed Unicron trying to eat Cybertron.

Meanwhile, on the shattered crust of a planet, Wreck-Gar says they can repair Springer. Arcee (with novelty female voice) says "Can you really?" etc. And with a press of a button, Springer is returned intact and fully functional. Arcee hugs Springer, launching a thousand fanfics.

Rodimus is not so excited about Springer's return, apparently realizing that the triple changer is now taken, and that he waited too long to tell Springer how he felt.

Rodimus tries to cover for this by claiming he was thinking of the Quintessons. "Who they are? Why they treat us like enemies? Where they are? Who they are with? What are they thinking? Are they thinking of me? And whether they will ever return someday?" It's a bit maudeline and lovesick.

Springer suggests that Rodimus try to kill himself. He claims to be joking, when Arcee objects, but then says "You won't do anything rash, will you Rod?", holds Arcee close to himself and walks away with Arcee.

So, Rodimus tries to kill himself.

And inside the Matrix he gets some answers. It is the Quintesson origin recounted and discussed countless times.

Neat bits: We get visions of what Rodimus would look like as an Autobot or Decepticon of various eras. Quintessons drive by in a bitchin' car. We get a brief glimpse of Glyph and some female Cybertronians. Pole vaulting. One of the female Junkeons who was with Wreck-Gar riding a motorcycle. Megatron gets created by 8 constructicons.

There are Rodimus-looking robots in a lot of the scenes, which make me think this is Rodimus experiencing the memories of the Autobot leaders in the matrix, and that this dream sequence is a bit symbolic, which can explain how the Constructicons have 8 members and are creating Megatron long before he created them -- Rodimus is filling in details of the Matrix vision from his own memories, which may be filled with misinformation, or may result in inaccuracies when combined with the memories from the Matrix. It's either that or there were a lot of Autobot leaders who looked like Rodimus.

Rodimus awakes to the sight of Springer leaning over him, his lips sensuous and tender. But, no time for that, since Cybertron is in deadly danger.

And on a small asteroid near Cybertron, Galvatron and the Quintessons have a two pronged plan that starts now -- Trypticon on Earth, built overnight from a human city, and a shuttle sneaking onto Cybertron with an SOS crashing into the power station, giving the Decepticons a change to attack in bulk.

We get multicolored Constructicons, a Grimlock colored Perceptor, and actual Perceptor suggesting killing lots of humans.

And Quintessons chortle knowing that they will soon have victory over both Autobot and Deepticon.

--- end episode 4 ---

Wow, that's a lot of exposition. Really, that is a lot of exposition.

And the Quintessons are far more interesting villains than the Decepticons. They have motivations beyond personal power, and have much better plans.

--- and onto episode 5 ---

We begin with a rainbow of Sweeps and some other Decepticons in space, as Galvatron orders the attack. The camera pulls away to reveal that this is what Rodimus and crew are watching on Cybertron. And the area between the viewer and the Autobots explodes as the Decepticons attack.

This is the second time they have used that storyboard idea, and it remains effective and interesting. I think it would not hold up to a third time so quickly.

The Autobots retreat to level 2, except for Ultra Magnus. Rodimus notes "your courage will be remembered," and immediately turns his back on Ultra Magnus. Ultra Magnus had not said anything to suggest he realized that he was volunteering to hold the position until his death (he in fact said "Get going, I'll see you later"), but Rodimus passive-aggressively orders him to hold his ground and die.

Oh, look a Cyclonus painted up like Dirge!

Ultra Magnus appears to turn tail and run, shouting "Get moving!" to himself as encouragement.

We then cut to the Quintessons, who are watching from one of their corkscrew ships, and note that there is an 84% probability that the Autobots will be defeated within 20 hours. So, they check in on Earth on their viewscreen and see Trypticon transforming into rolling base mode.

On Earth, Trypticon continues to roll, and fights of the advances of Powerglide. Powerglide transmits coordinates to the "Intercept Squad" -- a bunch of minibots who are in the Ark. The minibots hide in a crevice and shoot Trypticon's soft underbelly as he passes overhead, but to no avail. Beachcomber has a gun -- I thought he was a pacifist.

Trypticon transforms into his dinosaur mode, so they alert Metroplex. Blaster then tries to contact Cybertron, but instead just tells the Quintessons where Metroplex's transformation cog is, and that they should expect Sky Lynx to save the day. The Quintessons reply that they will have to see how Sky Lynx fairs against ... THE PREDACONS!

Wheelie drops the transforming cog, because he's an idiot.

Meanwhile, the Minibots decide to make a stand in front of the Ark. The battle does not go well for them.

Luckily, there are Pueblo Indian caves near the Ark. Cannons pop out, shots are fired, and Trypticon destroys them all. Not so lucky, I guess. Trypticon then turns, possibly without destroying the Ark, and walks off towards Metroplex. And then he shoots the viewer.

Lots of fighting on Cybertron. Perceptor criticizes the doomed Autobots and demands that they meet their fate valiantly. Galvatron orders Blitzwing to go to the Quintessons and file a status report.

Blitzwing overhears the Quintessons explaining their plan to betray the Decepticons, which they explain in detail since Sharkticons are not very bright.

And on Io, Sky Lynx shoots some flying gopher things, and then sends his cargo container down for Blurr, Wheelie and Marissa to board.

And the Predacons arrive. Fight, fight, shoot, shoot, and Predaking! Sky Lynx is victorious. While boarding Sky Lynx, Wheelie trips over the transformation cog.

The saga of the lost transformation cog is now over.

Trypticon continues to menace Metroplex. Sky Lynx is quickly on Earth, but damaged and the Autobots run the cog over to Metroplex, making lots of passes like in football.

And on Cybertron, Blitzwing lands by Galvatron and tries to explain that the Quintessons are lying and there is no Decepticon Matrix. "Tell it to the Autobots!" Galvatron says, so Blitzwing does. He also mentions a commando team of Sharkticons.

On Earth, Metroplex transforms and attacks Trypticon. Fight, fight, shoot, shoot, they stomp around a small city breaking things, and then Metroplex hurls Trypticon into the ocean,

And inside Cybertron, Sharkticons are about to pull the lever down with Rodimus, Blitzwing and Spike arrive. Fight, fight, shoot shoot. Galvatron arrives, and pulls down the lever that freezes all Transformers across the universe.

Quintessons arrive to gloat, Spike blows up a switch, the Transformers are active again, they chase Quintessons.

Blitzwing has a moment, and is never welcome in the Decepticons again.

Rodimus then gives a rousing speech about how the Transformers have met their creators, and

And I am about to fall asleep. Just overtired.

Overall, despite its many, many problems, FFoD it's a much better constructed story than TF:TM. There is actually a single plot, rather than an amusing bunch of misadventures along the way from points a to b. There is a crapload of exposition, and there is some pretty serious retconning of the Quintessons. There is a lack of shiny McGuffins.




Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats

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May 16, 2015, 4:36:05 AM5/16/15
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On Thursday, May 14, 2015 at 8:06:39 PM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:
>

Your review is actually so long that it cannot be quoted in Google Groups. Go figure. So I have to resort to copying and pasting and adding little arrows. It's so primitive.

> When Toei was working on the film (and some beautiful 1986 episodes of G.I. Joe),
> much of the third season of Transformers was farmed out to the lower-quality Korean
> studio AKOM. The dip in visual quality is overt and disappointing; while the unrefined
> footage in some ways fits the mood of the third season, it pales in quality to the
> general appearance of the show for its first two seasons.

Even at it's best, the animation quality in Transformers was kind of weak. Worlds above Voltron, or some of the other shows, but still weak. I barely notice a difference in the quality between the best and the worst episodes -- I can see it, but it's not enough of a difference to ever pull me out of the show as I watch it.

When I think of good animation, I think of "Watership Down" and things of that calibre, which the Transformers never approached. Transformers had thoroughly mediocre animation.

> the Insecticons show up early in the episode, but this is arguably a mistake
> (they were turned into Sweeps in the movie) and, except for a very strange flub in
> "Fight or Flee," they never appear in the show after this mini-series.

I see no reason to believe that their appearance here is a mistake, and that their appearance in the movie was correct. It could easily be the other way around.

(You were expecting me to argue that in the movie they were clones, weren't you?)

> We learn that the Decepticons have gone from ruling Cybertron to having been
> kicked off the planet completely in the wake of Unicron's attack, and they're living
> on the ruins of a planet called Chaar. No episode ever comes out directly and
> states this, but it's clear there was a former civilization dwelling there. There are
> damaged buildings and other evidence of a previous colony of some sort. I would
> love to presume that the Decepticons slaughtered the former Chaarizards before
> taking residence there, but given what we learn about them in this episode, that
> seems unlikely.

We know that Megatron had a number of enterprises running scattered throughout the galaxy towards the end of Season 2, so this could have been the remains of one of them. The Chaarizards could have been killed by the Decepticons quite some time ago.

It is a bit odd that the Decepticons would settle there, though, as it provides absolutely nothing for them. Obscurity, but that doesn't last long.

> "Five Faces of Darkness" has more animation mistakes than any other five episodes
> combined, bar none.

"Carnage in C-Minor" and any four other episodes. I rest my case.

> Elsewhere, the Autobots are hosting what basically amounts to the Space Olympics.
> Rodimus Prime is visibly less-than-enthusiastic about the whole affair

I didn't get that impression at all. He was enthusiastic about the games themselves, but not the ceremony. Rodimus doesn't stand on ceremony, unlike Ultra Magnus.

> A major plot point of the mini-series is that the transformation cog for Autobot City,
> which has been retconned into a Transformer named Metroplex (the terms are used
> synonymously), has been damaged, leaving the city in a vulnerable state.

This is a lot less jarring of a retcon than the Matrix of Leadership was. A lot of FFoD consists of retconning away chunks of the movie, and this is just one of the first instances. It might not bother me since I saw FFoD long before the movie, so I think of the movie as this weird thing where no one had the right voice, Season 2 characters were weirdly absent, and Metroplex never bothered to transform.

> Blurr and Wheelie are both assigned to play delivery boy, escorting the cog safely
> from Cybertron to Earth. We can only hope that they both die a horrible death
> before they get there, because they're two of the most annoyingly gimmicky
> Autobots ever created.

I hate Blurr so much more than Wheelie.

> Say what you like about this mini-series, but that's one amazing nod to continuity.
> Galvatron doesn't just spontaneously show up one day to lead the Decepticons
> again; the episode acknowledges that he was sent hurtling towards parts unknown,
> so the Decepticons have to actively track him down.

Had he been leading the Decepticons from the beginning of FFoD, we would have just assumed he didn't hurtle too far. And since the lava bath is part of the justification for his insanity, I would have greatly preferred avoiding it. Galvatron is one of my least favorite Transformers.

> Elsewhere, we get a scene in Carbombya that doesn't really do much for this
> episode, specifically, but establishes the setting for future episodes.

Casual racism is its own reward...

> In addition to the quality of the animation taking a big nosedive, the visual language
> of the show has changed. The Transformer characters themselves are still Floro
> Dery designs, but he was no longer actively working on the show by this point,
> which means he was no longer around to design the backgrounds and props and
> random aliens. His character designs had a certain poetic, whimsical flair (Aron
> from "Child's Play" with his great, big, goofy eyes) that's totally absent in characters
> like the Skuxxoid.

There is generally a much darker tone to the show in Season 3, and characters like Aron would have looked entirely out of place. The Skuxxoid fits perfectly though.

> The Skuxxoid is actually working for the Quintessons in this episode, and he's been
> instructed to mislead Springer and Arcee into believing that the Decepticons are the
> kidnappers. He sure doesn't do a very convincing job of it ("The who? Oh, I mean,
> yes, of course! The Decepticons!") but Springer and Arcee swallow it hook, line, and
> sinker anyway.

Given that the shows target audience was pretty young, I can accept this. They want the lie to be transparent enough that kids in the audience catch it, but they still have to make the other characters believe it.

> It's around this time that the animators pretty much give up on the Decepticons
> background characters. Up to this point, they'd done a fairly admirable job of
> drawing and coloring the characters correctly, but perhaps due to budgetary
> constraints, perhaps due to not giving a shit, they eventually started drawing and
> coloring the characters more or less randomly. I don't count Octane's presence on
> Chaar as a mistake (he was probably kicked off Cybertron when the Autobots took
> over), but there are also Predacons on Chaar, blue Swindles, dead 1984 Decepticon
> jets... oh, and GALVATRON.

Since there are no mistakes, how do you account for this?
- Predacons were really there. The Quintessons take control of them when they need to.
- Blue Swindle is a new character.
- The jets were obviously not completely dead.
- That Galvatron was pulled from the future, but refuses to interfere with the timeline because that would be insane.

> That's why we get Shockwaves colored like Constructicons and Thundercrackers
> colored like Onslaught, I suspect.

Sure, if you like boring not-in-universe explanations. Or these are just other Decepticons we haven't seen before, who Galvatron will eventually drive away.

Ok, tired again. I'll comment on your comments to episodes 2-5 later.


banzait...@gmail.com

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May 16, 2015, 10:41:13 AM5/16/15
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> Even at it's best, the animation quality in Transformers was kind of weak. Worlds above Voltron, or some of the other shows, but still weak. I barely notice a difference in the quality between the best and the worst episodes -- I can see it, but it's not enough of a difference to ever pull me out of the show as I watch it.

No way!!! Call of the primitives >>>>>>>>>>>> Carnage in C-Minor

-Banzaitron

Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats

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May 16, 2015, 4:33:23 PM5/16/15
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On Thursday, May 14, 2015 at 8:06:39 PM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:
>
> FIVE FACES OF DARKNESS PART 2

> It's around this time that the animators have stopped even trying to get their
> background Decepticons to match any existing designs. There are robots that
> kinda-sorta look like Stunticons and Combaticons, but they're colored randomly (the
> sorta-Breakdown is colored like Rumble, for example; some Decepticon with Optimus
> Prime windows in his chest is colored like Soundwave)

I like this. The background Transformers should either be ones we recognize, or something more than just miscolored Transformers -- this loose interpretation of existing keeps these characters looking reasonably like Transformers, but not ones we know.

There are a *lot* of Decepticons that we haven't seen before, and they have all ended up gathered on Chaar. This really begins to feel like there are the edges of some larger story that we aren't getting, because we are so focused on the Decepticons who were on Earth, and the Unicron-origin Decepticons.

Chaar appears to have a larger population than Cybertron did during Seasons 1 and 2. Perhaps it was a thriving Decepticon colony before some cataclysm destroyed all power generation.

> This also establishes on some level that Cyclonus does have some memories of
> his former existence. Cyclonus wasn't around for episodes like "B.O.T.", when
> Swindle sold off the Combaticon parts for petty cash, but Skywarp sure was!

It has been a year since the events of TF:TM, and Cyclonus has obviously attempted to make a go of it without Galvatron in this time (otherwise, why wait a year before hunting down Galvatron?). He's had plenty of time to form his own opinions of Swindle. Plus, he's named Swindle! Trusting him would be like hiring a Skuxxoid and expecting refined, black-tie service...

> Also, Kickback appears in two scenes as Cyclonus and the Sweeps collect their
> donations and fly away. I can never decide whether he's really dead or not.

Clearly not dead. Any scene were he appears to have died was an animation error.

> I'm telling you, this is a well-written mini-series. It's consistently very clever.
> People would have loved it if it had been animated better. "Zero percent probability
> of truth," a Judge responds, who clearly can't take a joke.

I do love it, despite the prominence of Blurr (and Wheelie, but mostly Blurr). And the Quintessons are a big part of it. They are the villains that the Decepticons never managed to be.

> Anyway, the whole purpose of this courtroom scene seems to actually provide a
> reason for the Quintessons putting robots on trial during the movie. In the film, they
> were just random, wacky aliens who liked to dress up in judicial robes, clack a
> gavel, and watch robots get eaten alive.

I mean, sure, there's the dressing up in judicial robes, the clacking of gavels, and the watching robots get eaten alive, but there's more to life than just that!

> Now it seems that they're actively pursuing
> the Transformers, specifically, who stole Cybertron from them. Of course, this
> doesn't really address the fact that a) even robots like Kranix, who were declared
> innocent, were still executed

They don't want survivors to tell stories about them. They judge, find him innocent, and then sentence him to death so they remain as secret as possible.

> b) they already put Kup on trial and didn't identify
> him by name or recognize him, or Hot Rod, as Transformers.

I think it's been a long time since they have seen Transformers, and that Transformer technology has been copied throughout the galaxy in the form of all the other robotic races (and Unicron, for that matter). And Autobots have deviated quite a bit from Quintesson programming. They didn't recognize him until the Sharkticon rebellion, or perhaps until they captured some unlucky Decepticon over the last year.

For this theory to make sense, Cybertron must have moved at some point, but we have seen warp gates and things like that, so it's possible.

Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats

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May 16, 2015, 4:34:57 PM5/16/15
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On Saturday, May 16, 2015 at 7:41:13 AM UTC-7, banzait...@gmail.com wrote:
> > Even at it's best, the animation quality in Transformers was kind of weak. Worlds above Voltron, or some of the other shows, but still weak. I barely notice a difference in the quality between the best and the worst episodes -- I can see it, but it's not enough of a difference to ever pull me out of the show as I watch it.
>
> No way!!! Call of the primitives >>>>>>>>>>>> Carnage in C-Minor

Barely.

Both are well short of "Watership Down", and well above genuinely bad animation. Thoroughly mediocre. High and low end of mediocre, perhaps.

Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats

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May 16, 2015, 9:21:58 PM5/16/15
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On Thursday, May 14, 2015 at 8:06:39 PM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:
>
> FIVE FACES OF DARKNESS PART 2 (Continued)
>
> We see that Rodimus has in fact entered the Matrix in what can only be described
> as a near-death experience. Exactly what the Matrix is, and why the Autobots enter
> it when they die, requires a lot of convoluted hand-waving.

There are a lot of weird mystic things put on top of it, and some completely incoherent things, but the basic premise of the Matrix is simple -- It copies the laser core of its bearer into itself when the bearer dies, and interfaces with the bearer's laser core when they are alive, allowing them to tap into the wisdom of the previous bearers.

And, had they left it at that, it would have been very straightforward. Instead it can kill Unicron, physically transform whoever carries it (except Optimus), cure hate plagues, and interface with Vector Sigma.

The physical transformation might be somewhat explicable -- if you are willing to go along with the staggering terrible idea that Transformer bodies are infinitely mutatable if only the Transformers understood how to do it. Just as Soundwave can change scale, and Hot Rod can transform in a different manner each time during the movie, the Matrix makes the bearer's body stronger. Optimus didn't revert because he was dead/dying when he gave up the Matrix -- and we see the same thing with other Matrix Bearers in the visions as they die.

> (We know it can function as a key to Vector Sigma, but we also know it is not of
> Quintesson origin.

We don't know that. We know that it is somehow connected to Primacron, but we don't know that Primacron doesn't have a connection to the Quintessons.

I'm firmly of the belief that the only way to reconcile Primacron being the creator of many of the Primitives, and the Quintessons being the creators of the Transformers as a whole is to connect them -- Primacron is either another form of Quintesson scientist, or was using Quintesson technologies. Primacron might be another Quintesson creation...

> Thus, I think it's reasonable to conclude that the Quintessons found the Matrix and
> built Vector Sigma to interact with it.

Thhhhpt.

> After their robots started malfunctioning (i.e. developing emotions), they must have
> used the Matrix to dump their personalities into so they could start over with a clean
> slate and reprogram the former malfunctioning robots with new personalities.

We saw that the Quintessons took the malfunctioning robots and just threw them into the smelting pits. (Similar to the smelting pits inside Unicron, by the way)

> When the Autobots overtook Cybertron and exiled the Quintessons, they were
> stuck with this weird Matrix thingy and all these would-be rebel robots trapped
> inside it, so the least they could do was hang onto the Matrix and keep the
> attempted rebels safe.)

The Matrix is a prison? The Cybertronian version of Krypton's Phantom Zone? Really?

I'm going to stick with my belief that the Matrix is simply a weird artifact, probably created by Primacron, to tie it into Unicron's origin. Whatever its original purpose was, it became a repository for the laser cores of the Transformers that carried it. Primacron's creations were not always well planned, as he was more of a mad scientist than a scientist (you can tell this by the lack of control groups in his experiments)

Interfacing with Vector Sigma is either an accident caused by it containing laser core programming created by Vector Sigma (we don't see anyone use it to interface with Vector Sigma after it gets emptied in TROOP, do we?), or because it was built with the same technology as Vector Sigma.

I guess the hate plague must somehow be a Quintesson creation, to make the Matrix have any effect over it.

Anyway, I strongly prefer my speculation over yours. Your speculation is weak and unsupported, but mine is awesome.

> The Matrix vision could have been so cool if it had been animated by capable
> artists, but instead we get arabic numerals floating through space and lots of things
> exploding. Over and over again. Numbers explode. Quintessa explodes. Skull-
> faced robots explode. A whole parade of robots explode. A Quintesson explodes.
> Your neighbor's dog explodes. I guess we're supposed to get from this that
> something is going to eventually explode.

The first vision is a crappy one, because Rodimus hasn't really prepared himself. I think the explosions represent him turning away fro the visions rather than embracing them.

> I love the part when Rodimus asks if Grimlock remembers the whole business
> from the movie when the shuttle was shot down over Quintessa and Hot Rod went
> to trial. "Me, Grimlock, rescue you!" Grimlock affirms, prompting Arcee to look
> askance at Grimlock and go, "You must be kidding." Susan Blu's comic timing is
> perfect, and I love her deadpan delivery.

That really was an excellent moment.

> On Quintessa, Kup sums up the scene quite nicely: "We're gonna get a fair trial,
> and then they're gonna kill us."

The Quintessons are from Texas.

> when Spike finds a gun and takes a Quintesson Judge hostage, the other
> Quintessons just sentence everybody to death, Quintesson hostage and all.

He needed killin'

> (The guy's name is Deliberata, as in to deliberate during court proceedings.
> Apparently all Quintessons are named after legalistical judgy terms.)

So, where were the Quintessons during the previous 9 million years while the Transformers were unmolested by them? Suffering under the uneventful rule of Statusquo...

> No, he's just a lunatic. Scourge lands and tries a different approach, placating
> Galvatron with some smooth talk. "Watch out for this one, Cyclonus," Galvatron
> warns. "One day, he might take your place." Of course, Cyclonus' "place," as it
> turns out, is to become Galvatron's punching bag. Scourge probably wouldn't want
> the job.

The Quintessons really are much better villains than the Decepticons. They have motivation, they scheme, they trick others into doing their dirty work. The Decepticons are just brutes led by a lunatic.

> Galvatron launches into space, transforms to cannon mode, and destroys Thraal.
> It's so difficult to gauge how powerful he still is.

Perhaps Thraal was just a planet filled with explosives?

> While rescue operations are underway, the Quintessons, never ones to be outdone,
> decide to detonate Quintessa altogether. These guys have got a serious hate-on for
> the Autobots. (If my vaccuum cleaner started going haywire or if my computer
> suddenly locked up and didn't respond to my keyboard input, clearly the answer is
> to just burn down my condo.) Quintessa explodes (and freeze-frames, if you're
> watching the Shout Factory version).

So, we have the two main villains each destroy a planet. Galvatron because he's an unstable and easily frustrated idiot with a massive cannon, and the Quintessons because they are sacrificing their world to destroy their enemies. Which are the better villains? Quintessons, clearly.



Zobovor

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May 16, 2015, 9:47:52 PM5/16/15
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On Friday, May 15, 2015 at 1:56:06 AM UTC-6, Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:

> The DVD release that is ripped onto my hard drive only has the special FFoD
> opening on episodes 3 and 5, which is yet another example to the attention to
> detail and quality that plagues this story.

That's just inconsistent handling on the part of Rhino and/or Shout Factory. The FFoD title sequence was part of the original broadcast presentation. Somebody just botched it during the DVD transfer.

> Astrotrain says "Well, they were the same guy", and then the entire issue is
> glossed over for the rest of the series. It's a shame, as it would have been
> interesting to see how the old Decepticons really reacted to having this new
> guard taking over.

I think the Decepticons were so desperate and starving that any salvation was better than no salvation at all. And, really, it was probably easier for them to accept Galvatron as leader, knowing that he used to be Megatron. (If the whole Megatron/Galvatron thing is common knowledge, then does Astrotrain know that Scourge used to be Thundercracker? Do the Decepticons sit on Chaar and debate whether it was Skywarp or Bombshell who became the "real" Cyclonus"?)

> The race that Jazz is taking part in has a large number of Transformers in
> it, and only a Transformer could possibly win it, as there are large chunks
> of race track broken up by obstacle courses that can only be done in robot
> mode.

I wish we got a better view of the red guy with spikes on his shoulders. He's semi-interesting looking, but we only see him from the side view.

> Jazz wins the race, and the announcer says that the winner is so-and-so from
> the Argon Cluster.

Jazz cheated so the medal was given to the runner-up by default.

> "Autobots! You walk the thin line between glory and despair" one of the
> creatures says

I hate that they artificially deepened the voice in this scene. One supposes it was done to obscure the fact that it's a Quintesson speaking, but was the audience expected to be so familiar with the Quintesson voices that a normally-modulated voice delivery would have been a dead giveaway?

Also, Peter Cullen sounds REALLY strange in the first live-action Transformers film. They deepened his voice for the 2007 movie, but none of the other ones, and now the first one sounds so utterly wrong.

> the bumper features a transforming Sharkticon, so there's no real suspense as
> to who it is.

Heh, I never thought about that. Come to think of it, the bumpers sure make Trypticon's introduction a lot less amazing, too, don't they?

> The quarantine is short lived, as a ship bursts from the ground and flies
> away. Arcee and Springer drive off to find a ship to chase them, and Rodimus
> begins his season long lament at being the chosen one.

> The Sweeps are skittish when they climb through Unicron's eye socket, but
> Cyclonus reassures them that Unicron is dead, just before Unicron moans. "It
> must be the wind!" Cyclonus says. "There is no wind is space" a sweep
> replies. Clearly, space is filled with still air.

Well, yes, obviously.

> And then Grimlock laughs at their suffering, and the vibrations of his
> laughter cause the pillar to begin to give way.

Also, the sound of Grimlock's laughter is one of the strangest things in existence.

> Hey, Cardicia appears in the opening for season 3! Woo-hoo, you go girl! (Ok,
> she is probably meant to be Cyclonus in shadows, but the bright pink details
> just don't work).

Something odd about the movie characters is that a lot of them are many, many different shades of a single color. Springer has dark green parts and medium green parts and a light green face. Arcee has some dark pink, some light pink, and a very light pink face. Cyclonus is the same way, but sometimes his purple reads as pink. I also think the specific shades of color in which the characters appeared depended upon the animation studio. Maybe they were interpreting the color models differently, or had different tints in their paint, or something weird like that.

> Rodimus makes fun of Grimlock's speech impediment. Optimus would never do
> that.

True. But that's because Optimus kept them locked in a closet.

> Those who care about the previous identity of Cyclonus, Scourge and the
> Sweeps (and the Armada) are probably very confused by these scenes as all of
> the candidates are probably all standing around live and well. To me, it
> never made a difference as there is nothing in the previous personalities
> that informs the characterization of these new characters.

I think there are minor details that inform the characterization if you look really hard for it. For example, Cyclonus gives a Quintesson a lesson in mob psychology in "The Face of the Nijika." Bombshell probably knew a lot about psychology because he was good at reprogramming robots.

> They may have mind-reading powers -- Ultra Magnus thinks so, and some of the
> dialogue of the Quintessons suggests so as well. This is not developed
> further in the show.

I don't think they have mind-reading powers per se. Knowing what we know now about the Quintessons being the creators of the Transformers, it makes sense that they would know a few things about the status of Cybertron and its inhabitants. This is also why they can't "mind read" Spike, because he's not their creation. At this point in the story, though, all Magnus and Spike know is that the Quintessons are just "a bunch of funky aliens" and yet seem to know a lot of things they shouldn't.

> Arcee can clearly detect, suggesting that she might have once held a role of
> medic.

Her "I'm no doctor" line seems to counter that idea.

> Grimlock now proclaims his love for Arcee, which is uncomfortable for her, as
> every single male transformer will do it at least once.

It's Smurfette Syndrome all over again. In the third season, Arcee is literally the only female Autobot, so all the eligible bachelors lust after her by default.

> The insane leader of Galvatron will be one of my least favorite parts of
> Season 3, as it removes a lot of his moral culpability. Megatron was a lot of
> things -- petty, cruel, incompetent, a terrible strategist, and completely
> without any grand cause other than his own power, but he wasn't insane.

I think there was a deliberate effort to distance the third season from what had come before. A strict reading of the movie reveals Galvatron to basically be Megatron wearing a new tuxedo. That's not very interesting. Making Galvatron a little loony gives him a major character flaw, and that helps to ground him and make him relatable. Me, I love Galvatron. I would never want to be a Decepticon troop and actually go into a battle led by him, but he's so entertaining and fun to watch.

> By the way, Quintessons sitting in chairs is just a weird look. They don't
> need chairs to relax, they need egg cups or something.

What happens to them when they turn off their energy beams? Do they just fall over?

> The Quintessons blow up their planet to destroy the Autobots, but the
> Autobots are rescued by the Aerialbots, who are flying a ship that looks like
> Fireflight, but is so huge that all the Aerialbots fit inside

For what it's worth, I thought it was Fireflight when I first saw the episode. Also, does this mean you've learned to tell your Aerialbots apart? (I still can't tell the Dreadnoks apart after watching every episode of G.I. Joe.)

> Broadside is blown up, and the Autobots are adrift in space. No one seems to
> be bothered by the death of Broadside, and he shows up later so he might be
> Broadside's identical twin brother.

When the Quintessons pick up Cyclonus in "The Killing Jar," they disguise their ship to look and talk like Broadside, and he falls for it. So either there is a second Broadside who is a Decepticon, or he's a double-agent. And then when Broadside appears in episodes like "Grimlock's New Brain" and "The Burden Hardest to Bear," his robot mode is completely different than it was in "Carnage in C-Minor." So maybe he really is a double-spy, like Punch-Counterpunch, and has two robot mode transformations.

> Rodimus suggests that they relax and enjoy the ride. There are times when I
> don't like the portrayal of Rodimus, and this is one of them -- later in the
> season, he has a bit of a weariness that wears better than the brash
> cockiness.

I agree. His line in part 4 about how the battle is the "last big party of the summer" strikes me as far too irreverent, and seemingly for its own sake. The later Rodimus from episodes like "Call of the Primitives" or "Only Human," when he's making snarky remarks instead of flippant ones, is a more enjoyable character to me.

> The space gate is never explained, is it? Someone built these things, someone
> with technology on par with the Decepticons in 1984, but we never learn who.
> Are we supposed to conclude it was the Quintessons?

You could be on to something. When they're used in "The Quintesson Journal," the Quintessons use one to sneak up and capture Sky Lynx. "Where did that warp gate come from?" he asks right before his capture, suggesting that the Quintessons have the power to make them appear and disappear.

> I hate Blurr the way most people hate Wheelie.

Pairing the two together just seems like a bad writing choice. It would have made more sense to pair a weird Autobot with a normal one, so the normal one could question the weird one's behavior. You can't do the Odd Couple with two Felix Ungers.

> And then Galvatron attacks. He can be seen firing on the video screen in the
> ship, and then the other side of the ship explodes. I actually really like
> that.

Heck, yeah. It's a touch of realism that you don't always get in shows like this.

> Galvatron demands that the Sweeps go after them, and bring back some souvenirs. He specifically requests heads, but he would probably be ok with a t-shirt. Or a crushed laser core.

> Meanwhile, on Earth, which has acquired a second moon, Blaster is wishing
> everyone a good morning. "Good morning, good morning...:" he says, and then
> pauses and adds "Uh oh, we got a warning." Given that he speaks in rhyme, one
> must wonder what he was going to rhyme with "morning" before they got a
> warning.

That's a really good observation.

Anyway, Blaster rhymes because he's like a deejay speaking in song lyrics. Songs rhyme.

> "However grave the risk," one says, "we must form an alliance with the
> Decepticons." The scene is cut short before another Quintesson questions
> whether they can really trust anyone whose faction name is based on the
> word "deception".

Technically, the Quintessons should be calling them "the military hardware" and "the consumer goods," not "the Decepticons" and "the Autobots."

> there is a tiny Bruticus wandering about -- he might be formed on tiny
> Combaticons, or he might be an Action Master with a similar body type

Well, there's certainly evidence to support your claim. Tiny Bruticus appears again in "Surprise Party" and he even gets a speaking role in "Fight or Flee," where he's only slightly taller than Galvatron. Tiny Bruticus is also much more eloquent and uses words like "subtlety."

> The Quintesson hostage is complaining, and has his death face back. It must
> have crawled out of the Goo and back onto the Quintesson's body.

You hack off a Quintesson face, and it just sprouts arms and legs like movie Frenzy.

> Given the number of novelty voiced characters in Season 3, it really is
> surprising that I like it. I hate the novelty voices.

The problem with the gimmicks is that sometimes they're so all-encompassing that I never really get a feel for the characters. Like, I know how Wreck-Gar talks, but what kind of a robot is he, deep down inside? I get the feeling that he's brave (he tries to save somebody, maybe Springer, from the Trans-Organics in "The Dweller in the Depths"), but that's about it. Same with Wheelie. We know that "Wheelie is mean," and that he likes Daniel and the Dinobots, but I have no idea otherwise. At least with Blurr, we get the sense that he's panicky and nervous. Those are actual character traits.

> Marissa is bossy enough to make Blurr shut up. She is hot-headed and cannot
> control her temper or her nagging. Nothing like a nice bit of sexism to round
> out a scene.

I don't really get sexism from her behavior. She's a strong female G.I. Joe character, like Scarlett or Lady Jaye. At least she doesn't sit around waiting for the Autobots to save her.

> This is the second planet he has blown up. Who would win, Galvatron or the
> Death Star?

Well, it takes, like, 30 seconds of stock footage of Death Star Troopers powering the thing up before it can actually fire. Galvatron can transform in less time than that. So, I'd say Galvatron.

> Neat bits: We get visions of what Rodimus would look like as an Autobot or
> Decepticon of various eras.

It really, really bothers me that there are so many robots in the Matrix flashback who look like, or are colored like, Rodimus Prime.

> Beachcomber has a gun -- I thought he was a pacifist.

I don't think he's incapable of fighting like First Aid. He just contemplates the nature of the universe while he shoots you.

> Trypticon then turns, possibly without destroying the Ark, and walks off
> towards Metroplex. And then he shoots the viewer.

Maybe he shot the camera that was filming him. It was Hector Ramirez trying to get an interview with him for Twenty Questions. (Sorry. So much G.I. Joe.)

> Overall, despite its many, many problems, FFoD it's a much better constructed
> story than TF:TM. There is actually a single plot, rather than an amusing
> bunch of misadventures along the way from points a to b.

It definitely is a more cohesive story. Transformers: the Movie is a far more grand and epic adventure, but as you say, it's just a series of misadventures on various planets, one after the other. "Five Faces of Darkness" tries to continue the theme of weird planets (the all-lava planet, which predated Mustafar from Revenge of the Sith by almost 20 years), the goo planet, the crescent planet, etc. but it's backed by a much more solid plot.


Zob

Zobovor

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May 16, 2015, 9:57:47 PM5/16/15
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On Saturday, May 16, 2015 at 2:36:05 AM UTC-6, Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:

> I barely notice a difference in the quality between the best and the worst
> episodes -- I can see it, but it's not enough of a difference to ever pull me
> out of the show as I watch it.

That's really interesting to me. I think I have always been plagued by the curse of being bothered by low-quality animation. Perhaps I didn't notice it when I was very young, watching shows like Smurfs or He-Man, but I definitely noticed by the time I started watching Transformers.

> I see no reason to believe that their appearance here is a mistake, and that
> their appearance in the movie was correct. It could easily be the other way
> around.

From a real-life perspective, I think the movie was storyboarded far, far more carefully. Each and every character's appearance was planned and accounted for.

From an in-universe perspective, we saw the Insecticons got turned into something else on-screen in the movie. However, I had forgotten that Shrapnel does appear later on the Planet of Junk. I can't go around dismissing EVERY Insecticon appearance as a mistake! (Except for the one where Soundwave goes, "We're picking up an image, Galvatron-Galvatron" in Shrapnel's voice. I just pretend that scene never happened.)

> It is a bit odd that the Decepticons would settle there, though, as it
> provides absolutely nothing for them. Obscurity, but that doesn't last long.

Yeah, it was probably just a place they could go to lick their wounds and plan their next move.

> Given that the shows target audience was pretty young, I can accept this.
> They want the lie to be transparent enough that kids in the audience catch
> it, but they still have to make the other characters believe it.

He could have said "the who?" under his breath, so we as the audience could hear it, but not Springer and Arcee. As it stands, this scene requires Springer and Arcee to be really dumb.

> Since there are no mistakes, how do you account for this?

Well, my in-fiction answer is that there are just dozens of Decepticons who a) never got Hasbro toys and b) shared body types with existing characters and color schemes with OTHER existing characters. It's not completely far-fetched, especially considering what we know about Transformers being churned out on assembly-line factories.


Zob

Zobovor

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May 16, 2015, 10:09:15 PM5/16/15
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On Saturday, May 16, 2015 at 2:34:57 PM UTC-6, Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:

> Both are well short of "Watership Down", and well above genuinely bad
> animation.

This is, like, the third time you've mentioned this. I finally went digging for the movie on YouTube to see what all the fuss was about. I couldn't find the whole movie, but I did find a few scenes. (Also: I'm really glad I didn't see this movie when I was a kid, because it would have deeply traumatized me.)

I haven't seen enough of Watership Down to pass judgement on it as a whole, but I do want to ask a question: If you don't notice the good Transformers episodes from the bad (or, at least, not enough for it to bother you), then what would you consider "genuinely bad animation"?


Zob

Zobovor

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May 16, 2015, 10:17:16 PM5/16/15
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On Saturday, May 16, 2015 at 7:21:58 PM UTC-6, Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:

> Primacron is either another form of Quintesson scientist, or was using
> Quintesson technologies. Primacron might be another Quintesson creation...

Or, maybe Primacron is what the Quintessons used to look like before they started replacing their body parts with machinery?

> I guess the hate plague must somehow be a Quintesson creation, to make the
> Matrix have any effect over it.

Ugh. This is giving me a headache.

> Anyway, I strongly prefer my speculation over yours. Your speculation is weak
> and unsupported, but mine is awesome.

Your mom is weak and unsupported.

> The first vision is a crappy one, because Rodimus hasn't really prepared
> himself. I think the explosions represent him turning away fro the visions
> rather than embracing them.

Ooh, I kind of like that idea, actually. Helps me to not hate that scene quite as much.

> So, we have the two main villains each destroy a planet. Galvatron because
> he's an unstable and easily frustrated idiot with a massive cannon, and the
> Quintessons because they are sacrificing their world to destroy their
> enemies. Which are the better villains? Quintessons, clearly.

Galvatron and the Quintessons are like flip sides of the same coin. They're both evil, but the Quintessons are utterly devoid of emotion and Galvatron is completely ruled by his emotions. They need each other. They complete each other!


Zob

Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats

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May 17, 2015, 10:39:55 PM5/17/15
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On Thursday, May 14, 2015 at 8:06:39 PM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:
>
> FIVE FACES OF DARKNESS PART 3
>
> The recap for parts 1 and 2 is unintentionally hilarious

I strongly prefer the recaps in Armada, where they often had no relation to what they were recapping. I don't remember if Energon did the same, but if so, I am willing to bet that the story in the recaps was better than the actual story.

> As Quintessa explodes, Broadside makes a valiant attempt to get free from the
> resultant destruction, but a chunk of the planet rips through his hull, completely
> destroying him. Alas, poor Broadside, we hardly knew ye.

Clearly, Broadside transforms from an Earth-mode aircraft carrier to a very common spaceship the size of an aircraft carrier, and then to a robot. This might just be a spaceship. Or Broadside has a twin brother. Or Junkions came along, gathered the wreckage and rebuilt him like they do to Springer.

Also, Springer is secretly a Junkion spy from that point forward.

> Autobots and Aerialbots and assorted organic creatures (some of them slimy
> worm-fingered creeps; others unlikable dry-skinned bipeds) are sent flying into
> space. Quintessons can survive in outer space, and yet "The Face of the Nijika"
> establishes that their ships have life support systems. Go figure.

Quintesson's eggshells can provide life support, but it is an energy drain and that makes them cranky.

> "You figured a way out of this, or are we in big trouble?" Springer asks Rodimus.
> "We're in big trouble," says an upside-down Kup without missing a beat. Again,
> perfect comic timing. I think the fact that he's floating upside-down is what makes
> it so funny.

A lot of the humor falls flat for me, and this is one example. It is technically proficient, but just a bit too obvious. There's not even any good word play or anything to bring the first part of the question back. "I've figured out that we're in big trouble" would have been a little better.

> Elsewhere, Cyclonus is filling Galvatron in on current events. Apparently, in the
> interim between The Transformers: the Movie and "Five Faces of Darkness" part 1,
> the Earth Defense Command program was launched, probably by G.I. Joe, to serve
> as the planet's main defense platform. I'm actually kind of surprised this didn't
> happen sooner.

The Decepticons had pretty much given up on Earth by the time to movie happened, so there wasn't much need?

Or perhaps Rodimus was more willing to give the humans advanced technology so they could defend themselves than Optimus was?

> We'll see that EDC has orbital stations throughout the solar
> system, but they're inconsistent about keeping Decepticons from reaching Earth.
> Sometimes the EDC defenses are formidable and other times the Decepticons just
> waltz through without a second thought.

They are under a year old, and may still be being deployed. It's partial coverage right now.

> The warp gates may or may not have a
> connection to EDC; I'm not sure. They're used infrequently throughout the series
> (they also show up in "The Quintesson Journal") and I think they were introduced as
> a means for characters to travel quickly between distant points in space, but most
> of the time the problem of long-distance space travel is just casually glossed over.

A lot of science fiction series have warp gates left around by ancient civilizations. I assume that the moment a civilization creates warp gates and creates a nice network, they are promptly wiped out.


> Regarding Galvatron, though, this is a really fascinating changed premise for the
> character, and one probably introduced to make Galvatron more interesting.
> (What's funny is that, despite the Sweep's complaints, this episode actually shows
> Galvatron at his most lucid!) It seems like there's a clear attempt to distinguish the
> character from Megatron by making him more flawed, which in turn makes for better
> drama.

If Galvatron recognized his flaws, or actually had moments of brilliance despite them, I might think he was a better character than Megatron. But, he's just angry and abusive. Neither is very effective onscreen (Megatron is clearly more effective offscreen, creating a network of Decepticon aligned worlds that the Autobots stumble into now and again during Season 2).

> It's the same with Rodimus Prime. Optimus was basically perfect in every way, but
> Rodimus is headstrong and insecure and makes bad decisions, which again makes
> for more compelling storytelling.

Rodimus actually is a much more interesting character. He sees his flaws, he sometimes has to struggle against those flaws and overcome them ("The Ultimate Weapon") and other times must just accept himself with his flaws ("The Burden Hardest To Bear")

> As an aside, Wheelie does not rhyme with one hundred percent consistency. "Why
> do you fear? Can the dead be here?" he asks, but then as the hull is breached, he
> whispers, "Can they?!" So, obviously he's not locked into rhyming by some bizarre
> programming bug. In other words, he chooses to be annoying. He does it
> deliberately.

Oooh, nice catch. See, this is why I like Wheelie so much more than Blurr. Wheelie is mean and spiteful.


> On Earth, we see Autobot City manned by Blaster and, in a rare appearance, Eject.
> He alerts the EDC base on Mars to the Decepticon activity, and the EDC captain
> stationed there is dispatched to intercept. Her name is Marissa Fairborne, who, as
> we all know, is the daughter of Flint and Lady Jaye from G.I. Joe (Flint's civilian
> name is Dashiell Fairborne). Say what you want about this mini-series, but it's very
> ambitious in the number of new concepts it throws at you. Marissa is voiced by
> Sue "Arcee" Blu in some kind of bizarre almost-English accent.

Either GI Joe did not take place at the same time as Transformers, or Marissa is shockingly young, or Lady Jaye is not her mother. The timing doesn't work out -- GI Joe is 1984-1986, and there are no signs of Lady Jaye and Flint being an item. Assume that Flint knocks her up at a party or something (to remove the time required for any courtship) and Marissa is born in 1987. That makes her 19 in 2006. And a Captain.

Nope, just doesn't work.

> "Galvatron is strong, but Wheelie is mean!" he quips (again, not rhyming)

It is two off-rhymes -- Gavatron/strong, Wheelie/mean.

> Elsewhere, the Quintessons are on board their corkscrew ship watching home
> movies. They believe the Autobots went up in smoke with the destruction of
> Quintessa. "I am uncertain how to celebrate it," states one Quintesson. "Perhaps a
> quiet chuckle," suggests another. "Very well, then," agrees the first. "Let us...
> chuckle." The Quintessons proceed to chuckle. Say what you want about this
> mini-series, but this is exceptional writing. It's so downplayed and dry that it almost
> doesn't read as humor, but I find it hysterical. The Quintessons are so utterly based
> in logic and reason that they have to sit and deliberate over whether something is
> funny enough to laugh about. THAT is utter hilarity.

This is one of the best moments of Quintesson humor ever. They are great.

> Of course, the Autobots aren't finished yet. They're floating through space
> uncontrollably! The Quintessons lack the strength and firepower to destroy the
> Autobots in a direct assault, so they resolve to effect a merger with the
> Decepticons.

I would have loved there to be a Sharkticon present who just laughs hysterically when the Quintessons discover that the destruction of their homeworld was for nothing, and that their chuckle was uncalled for.

> There's a fairly disturbing scene when Kup notices something making muffled
> noises and pulls out... not Judge Deliberata, but one of the disembodied faces of
> Judge Deliberata. It's still talking and complaining about being robbed of his
> dignity, so it's evidently not in pain. So, apparently the egg bodies are just a vehicle
> for the faces, and it's the faces that are, themselves, alive. The Quintessons were
> weird before, but now they're positively horrifying.

I love this.

> Back on Jupiter, Blurr and Wheelie are STILL getting fired on by Galvatron. I tend
> to complain about two-part episodes being stuffed with padding to extend the
> episodes to their proper length. This is the only five-part episode in the show ("The
> Rebirth" was originally planned to be before Hasbro requested that it be shortened),
> and while it's surprisingly fast-paced, this is where it starts to drag a little. The
> worst part is probably the fight between Predaking and Sky Lynx, but the
> misadventures of Blurr and Wheelie is a close second. Anyway, they fall out of
> Jupiter and crash on Io, one of its moons.

No, no, people like Predaking and Sky Lynx. Blurr and Wheelie drags so much worse. Also, lots of Autobots floating through space.

> Only Blitzwing seems to suspect something is up. "They lie! They want something
> more! I know you... or creatures like you... hmm, if only I could remember..."

> By accident or design, this is remarkably consistent with what we know about
> Transformer long-term memory. Optimus Prime was unable to recall that Alpha
> Trion was his creator. Ultra Magnus didn't remember his own birthday. Over the
> long haul, Transformers just... forget stuff. Maybe it's a deliberate programming
> trait established by the Quintessons. Planned obsolescence, or a hardware
> limitation. Whatever the case, it does seem strange that Blitzwing, of all
> Decepticons, would be the oldest among them. Still, I'm willing to roll with it.

I think they were never designed to be left running for so long, and they just don't have the storage capacity.

But, you are assuming that Blitzwing remembers the Quintessons from 8 million years ago. Equally plausible is that Blitzwing has had some more recent encounter. The Quintessons could have abducted him, probed him in various uncomfortable manners, and then returned him -- perhaps they came across him and used him to find the Decepticons at some point, and then tried to erase his memory.


> On the moon of Io, Blurr and Wheelie-with-fake-voice are stranded without a ship.
> Io is a volcanic moon, and apparently it's home to volcanic creatures that live inside
> the volcanos and do volcanic stuff. God, I do so hate Wheelie's alternate voice.
> "Wheelie okay! Blurr, what do you say?" Blurr says he wants to rip off that stupid
> baseball cap helmet design of yours and shove it into your mouth until you
> asphyxiate.

It's more of a cadet cap, and I kind of like it. But that is also my default hat.

Hmm, I could have sworn I've seen a Wheelie hoodie somewhere, but the best I can find right now is Grimlock. http://www.80stees.com/products/grimlock-costume-hoodie


> Just then, droves of miscolored Decepticons pour from the Quintesson ship and
> attack,

I really don't think they are miscolored. They are generic Decepticons, filling out the ranks, an assortment of characters that you do not know or love. These are some of the hordes of Decepticons that were out in the galaxy, fighting the Autobots and oppressing women and children.

We never see them again because Galvatron is so terrible they all run away.

> "FIVE FACES OF DARKNESS" PART 4

Perhaps we should have done an episode a week, rather than such an incredible slog all at once...

>The recap for parts 1-3 is the only source that identifies the machine on planet Goo
> as an "elemental processing unit." See what you learn when you pay attention?

Are you sure it wasn't an Emmental Processing Unit, creating delicious swiss cheese out of this goo?

> Oh, good gravy. The miscolored Decepticons just keep on a-comin'. There's
> Blitzwing, colored like Air Raid. There's Octane, colored like Grimlock. There's
> Wildrider, colored like Cyclonus. There's even a Decepticon identical to the Dinobot
> Snarl, colored like Rodimus Prime (?!). Some Decepticons are just random robots
> that the animators made up. They've clearly stopped caring altogether. This is no
> longer a 22-minute toy commercial. It's just a spectacle of the damned.

New characters, all of them. I refuse to believe there can be that many errors in one spot when there is a reasonable explanation -- other Decepticons.

> On Goo, Rodimus and Magnus are totally shocked that the Decepticons haven't
> managed to kill them yet. Magnus blames it on "sloppiness" and "disorganization."

I love that little moment. Ultra Magnus is just plain offended that the Decepticons have done such a terrible job of killing them that they are entirely unharmed.

> They easily step out of the goo and into a control room of some sort, totally defying
> the rules carefully laid down about the planet in the previous episode.

The ship has an anti-goo field at the doorways. Otherwise how could anyone enter or leave?

> The Transformers: the Movie already strained credibility in establishing that
> basically everything in the cartoon can transform (cities, humans, alligator monsters,
> giant planets) so at this point one more random species capable of transforming
> shouldn't bother me. But it does. It really, really does.

Io was the Quintesson showroom for Lipoles. They are transorganic, and consume fat through a technique called "liposuction". Branching out to market their product to other consumers, they added the ability to transform into a missile and kill things.


> Galvatron wastes no time in attacking. "Try and take on Galvatron first!" Kup
> suggests, and this gets Rodimus Prime's attention (it's the first time he realizes
> Galvatron has not been destroyed). Wreck-Gar arrives in his junk cruiser and sucks
> the Autobots through the Goo and into his ship (he gets Deliberata, too, but
> evidently deems the Quintesson unfit for rescue, and promptly ejects him back out
> of the ship, past Galvatron, and into the darkness of space; we never see Deliberata
> again).

We go from seeing three Quintessons to four in all of the Quintesson scenes. Deliberata lives!

> Galvatron blasts the crap out of planet Goo, seemingly destroying it (we know that
> it's not completely gone, since it appears again in "Chaos"), and he declares the
> Junkions enemies just as the Autobots are.

Are we sure that is the same Goo?

> On board the ship, various Decepticons pledge their allegiance with a ceremonial
> salute--Octane, Soundwave, Starscream colored like Onslaught, and TWO
> Shockwaves colored like Constructicons. (Of all the generic background
> characters, I think that this Decepticon jet, who I call Slaughterhouse, is my
> favorite.)

The salute is a three part salute, with each of the three major factions saluting separately. Unicron created transformers in one wave, older Decepticons in another, and then the Quintessons, waving their tiny tentacles.

> (There is a scene where a Quintesson whips a slave robot for poor performance,
> and other robot onlookers recoil in horror.

Whips the slave from within the Quintesson Pimp Mobile! I love that car.

> There's a little bit of animation trickery in one scene, when we see a light blue
> Autobot with handlebars on his head riding a light blue motorcycle, and a purple
> Decepticon with lightning bolts on his chest riding a purple motorcycle with
> lightning bolts on it. First of all, it's obvious that each of these robot designs and
> vehicle designs was intended to be the same character, but the animators evidently
> mistook the character models for drawings of robots and the vehicles that they
> drove. Isn't that supposed to be the Junkions' trick? Speaking of the Junkions, the
> model for this light blue robot was used earlier in the episode; he was one of the
> Junkions standing next to Wreck-Gar. So, apparently this guy is, like, eleven million
> years old. (I'll bet he doesn't remember the Quintessons any better than Blitzwing.)

I was thinking the light blue one was female. But I also think she was rebuilt so many times that she probably lost her memory.

> Eventually, we learn, Megatron was created by the Constructicons. Eight of 'em, to
> be precise. This creates a pretty major contradiction, since "Heavy Metal War"
> establishes that Megatron built the Constructicons on Earth in 1984. This also flies
> in the face of the Constructicons existing as good guys millions of years ago on
> Cybertron, as seen in "The Secret of Omega Supreme." Short of somebody writing
> some crazy time travel fan fiction, there's no way to reconcile any of this.

The Matrix Vision draws both from the information in the laser cores of the Autobot leaders contained within the Matrix, and the memories of the current bearer's laser core. The images we see are not always accurate -- Rodimus is filling in details.

> FIVE FACES OF DARKNESS PART 5

> On Earth, Trypticon has begun his attack on the Autobot volcano base, which is
> largely inhabited by Mini Autobots these days. It's nice to finally see Trypticon in
> action, though his debut appearance is kind of anti-climactic, since the animation is
> so poor and the Mini Autobots aren't anything close to a good match for him.

I think the Minibots are exactly the right Autobots for Trypticon to attack. He's not one for fighting fair.


> Also, since this is the first appearance for the Predacons, and it's the Quintessons
> who send them into action, it would not be completely crazy to conclude that the
> Quintessons have built them. At the same time, though, Sky Lynx and Predaking
> seem to have some kind of shared history; Predaking makes comments about being
> well aware of Sky Lynx's overconfidence, and later episodes seem to suggest that
> they have a long-standing feud, which wouldn't really gel if they had only just met in
> this episode. So, who knows.

Sky Lynx's reputation for overconfidence precedes him.

Actually, rewatching, Sky Lynx says "if that's the worst the Predacons can do, we have nothing to worry about", Marrissa comments on Sky Lynx's overconfidence as the Predacons merge, and then Predaking makes his comment about Sky Lynx. So, I think this is the first meeting.

> Back on Earth, the Mini Autobots are weoefull ineffective against Trypticon. Even
> the Constructicons seem to recognize this. "What's the point? We're superfluous!"
> Scrapper admits when the others want to join the fray.

And that is how Decepticons should fight. With massive, overwhelming force against underarmed opponents.

> The Predacons waste all this time engaging the Autobots in their individual forms
> and then combine into Predaking. Then Sky Lynx just comes along, wraps his tail
> around Predaking's head, and knocks him over, causing them to break apart into
> the Predacons. As soon as they break apart, they call the retreat. Why? Weren't
> they holding their own against Sky Lynx as the individual Predacons?

Clearly not. Otherwise they wouldn't have had to merge to form Voltron in the first place.

> (Wheelie has a potty mouth, though, and shouts, "Olé, fucker!" at Tantrum, so that's
> something.)

And he doesn't rhyme.

> As Trypticon approaches Autobot City, Blaster is just full of contradictions. They
> still lack the transforming cog, but Blaster is all, "One city transformed, comin' up!
> Cogless or not, we're gonna fight!" so Metroplex proceeds to transform to battle
> station mode. What is it about this mini-series establishing these clear rules (like
> "without the transformation cog, the city is unable to transform" only to violate them
> a moment later)? I don't get it.

He cannot transform to robot mode without a cog though.

> Sky Lynx retrieves the cog, and from Autobot City, Frenzy and Dead End and two
> Constructicons cheer in delight. When it comes to the animation problems with this
> mini-series, you don't just suspend your disbelief, you have to outright expel it.

The constructicons just want to see Trypticon face a real battle. They were disappointed with the mini Autobot battle.

> The Autobots are left not with the happy victory you typically expected to
> accompany the cheerful victory trumpets, but a lopsided victory in which they've
> managed to keep a foothold on Cybertron and Earth, but now they have to content
> with the fact that their creators want them dead. It's a dark and mature conclusion
> that you just don't expect from a kids' show like this.

Rodimus: "Our creators want us dead"
Kup: "Parents fear their children will outlive them, they always want their children dead."
Rodimus: "You're not suggesting..."
Kup: "It's the only way... you have to kill your parents before they kill you."

> "Five Faces of Darkness" essentially sets up the world that the rest of the third-
> season episodes will take place in. It establishes the Quintessons as a formidable
> threat that will reappear to harass the Transformers in numerous episodes, and also
> sets the stage for future appearances from the Skuxxoid and Marissa Fairborne
> and, yes, Abdul Fakkadi. Yes, it's rather poorly animated and has an unforgivable
> number of mistakes. It's a mostly solid mini-series, though, and remains one of the
> most important parts of the series overall.

FFoD is, despite the Blurr and Wheelie adventures, probably my favorite Transformers storyline, at least in G1. It's what made me love the Quintessons.

Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats

unread,
May 17, 2015, 10:54:28 PM5/17/15
to
On Saturday, May 16, 2015 at 6:47:52 PM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:
> On Friday, May 15, 2015 at 1:56:06 AM UTC-6, Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:

>
> Also, Peter Cullen sounds REALLY strange in the first live-action Transformers film. They deepened his voice for the 2007 movie, but none of the other ones, and now the first one sounds so utterly wrong.

He sounds weak in all the others. I preferred the first.

> > Rodimus makes fun of Grimlock's speech impediment. Optimus would never do
> > that.
>
> True. But that's because Optimus kept them locked in a closet.

Pity Rodimus did not make a habit of mocking his troops' novelty voices. And then get frustrated and have them fixed.

> > Those who care about the previous identity of Cyclonus, Scourge and the
> > Sweeps (and the Armada) are probably very confused by these scenes as all of
> > the candidates are probably all standing around live and well. To me, it
> > never made a difference as there is nothing in the previous personalities
> > that informs the characterization of these new characters.
>
> I think there are minor details that inform the characterization if you look really hard for it. For example, Cyclonus gives a Quintesson a lesson in mob psychology in "The Face of the Nijika." Bombshell probably knew a lot about psychology because he was good at reprogramming robots.

But he was Skywarp...

> > Arcee can clearly detect, suggesting that she might have once held a role of
> > medic.
>
> Her "I'm no doctor" line seems to counter that idea.

A female doctor? Don't be ridiculous! This is 1986's 2006 -- women were nurses, not doctors!

> > The insane leader of Galvatron will be one of my least favorite parts of
> > Season 3, as it removes a lot of his moral culpability. Megatron was a lot of
> > things -- petty, cruel, incompetent, a terrible strategist, and completely
> > without any grand cause other than his own power, but he wasn't insane.
>
> I think there was a deliberate effort to distance the third season from what had come before. A strict reading of the movie reveals Galvatron to basically be Megatron wearing a new tuxedo. That's not very interesting. Making Galvatron a little loony gives him a major character flaw, and that helps to ground him and make him relatable. Me, I love Galvatron. I would never want to be a Decepticon troop and actually go into a battle led by him, but he's so entertaining and fun to watch.

Ugh. Any out of character moment can be explained by just saying "he's insane" and it also removes all motivations.

> > The Quintessons blow up their planet to destroy the Autobots, but the
> > Autobots are rescued by the Aerialbots, who are flying a ship that looks like
> > Fireflight, but is so huge that all the Aerialbots fit inside
>
> For what it's worth, I thought it was Fireflight when I first saw the episode. Also, does this mean you've learned to tell your Aerialbots apart? (I still can't tell the Dreadnoks apart after watching every episode of G.I. Joe.)

Let's see, there is Silverbolt, who turns into a Concorde, Fireflight who is red, Air Raid who is black and the two other ones...

> > I hate Blurr the way most people hate Wheelie.
>
> Pairing the two together just seems like a bad writing choice. It would have made more sense to pair a weird Autobot with a normal one, so the normal one could question the weird one's behavior. You can't do the Odd Couple with two Felix Ungers.

But, what if Blurr rhymed? That would make it all better, right?

> > there is a tiny Bruticus wandering about -- he might be formed on tiny
> > Combaticons, or he might be an Action Master with a similar body type
>
> Well, there's certainly evidence to support your claim. Tiny Bruticus appears again in "Surprise Party" and he even gets a speaking role in "Fight or Flee," where he's only slightly taller than Galvatron. Tiny Bruticus is also much more eloquent and uses words like "subtlety."

He's kind of adorable.


> > Marissa is bossy enough to make Blurr shut up. She is hot-headed and cannot
> > control her temper or her nagging. Nothing like a nice bit of sexism to round
> > out a scene.
>
> I don't really get sexism from her behavior. She's a strong female G.I. Joe character, like Scarlett or Lady Jaye. At least she doesn't sit around waiting for the Autobots to save her.

She seems more bossy than strong. There isn't enough of a character there at this point to say she is strong.

Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats

unread,
May 17, 2015, 11:03:19 PM5/17/15
to
On Saturday, May 16, 2015 at 7:09:15 PM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:
> On Saturday, May 16, 2015 at 2:34:57 PM UTC-6, Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:
>
> > Both are well short of "Watership Down", and well above genuinely bad
> > animation.
>
> This is, like, the third time you've mentioned this. I finally went digging for the movie on YouTube to see what all the fuss was about. I couldn't find the whole movie, but I did find a few scenes. (Also: I'm really glad I didn't see this movie when I was a kid, because it would have deeply traumatized me.)

I saw it in the theater when I was 6 or 7. I believe my father said "you like rabbits, don't you?"

Beautiful movie. Like the Lion King, but with bunnies. And more British, so there's not that whole glorification of the individual.

> I haven't seen enough of Watership Down to pass judgement on it as a whole, but I do want to ask a question: If you don't notice the good Transformers episodes from the bad (or, at least, not enough for it to bother you), then what would you consider "genuinely bad animation"?

Dragonball. Let's just start there. He-Man was terrible. Thundercats.

No One In Particular

unread,
May 18, 2015, 8:59:49 PM5/18/15
to
On 5/17/2015 9:39 PM, Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:
>
>> "Five Faces of Darkness" essentially sets up the world that the rest of the third-
>> season episodes will take place in. It establishes the Quintessons as a formidable
>> threat that will reappear to harass the Transformers in numerous episodes, and also
>> sets the stage for future appearances from the Skuxxoid and Marissa Fairborne
>> and, yes, Abdul Fakkadi. Yes, it's rather poorly animated and has an unforgivable
>> number of mistakes. It's a mostly solid mini-series, though, and remains one of the
>> most important parts of the series overall.
>
> FFoD is, despite the Blurr and Wheelie adventures, probably my favorite Transformers storyline,
>at least in G1. It's what made me love the Quintessons.
>



It does a huge amount of world building. In the first two seasons,
mostly all the Transformers do is either try to fit into human society
or else conquer it, depending on the faction. In season three, it's
reversed; the humans we see are trying to adapt to a larger universe
that they are now involved with.

Brian

Zobovor

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May 19, 2015, 7:46:57 PM5/19/15
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On Sunday, May 17, 2015 at 9:03:19 PM UTC-6, Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:

> Dragonball. Let's just start there. He-Man was terrible. Thundercats.

I think Dragonball and He-Man both suffer from the exact same problem. The shows consist almost entirely of a single cel drawing with some lips occasionally flapping. Both of them were drawn very well, but a single good-looking drawing does not an animated series make.

I recall the Thundercats opening title sequence looking very polished and impressive, but obviously that doesn't always speak towards the content of the show itself.


Zob

Zobovor

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May 19, 2015, 8:01:22 PM5/19/15
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On Sunday, May 17, 2015 at 8:54:28 PM UTC-6, Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:

> Ugh. Any out of character moment can be explained by just saying "he's
> insane" and it also removes all motivations.

I just don't agree with this at all. People like to say that Galvatron's insane, but he's really not. He's always aware of his surroundings and he knows what he's doing. I think the biggest difference between Megatron and Galvatron is that while Megatron is cold and calculating, Galvatron is hot and calculating. Megatron sort of distances himself from his emotions, but is quick to anger, while Galvatron embraces his emotions and basically lets them rule him.

I don't think Galvatron's so crazy that he's absolved of all culpability. It's not like he's The Incredible Hulk where he goes on these destructive rampages and doesn't remember any of it afterwards. His motives are pretty much the same as Megatron's, only he's more passionate about them.

Are you thinking about specific instances where he's out of character, or were you just speaking generally? Because I can certainly think of episodes where he's more frenzied ("Smash! Kill! Destroy! Rend! Mangle! Distort!") and other episodes where he's more lucid ("there will be no war today, Optimus Prime; you have earned Galvatron's respect") but the pendulum swings in both directions, and they're just the two extremes to his manic personality.

Also, something that occurs to me is that Galvatron is exactly what the Decepticons needed in order to survive the Quintessons. The Quintessons had no idea how to properly deal with Galvatron. He was a rogue element that confounded them, kind of like the humans. His rage and unpredictability make it impossible for them to successfully manipulate him. The Decepticons wouldn't have survived without Galvatron.


Zob

Zobovor

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May 19, 2015, 8:36:59 PM5/19/15
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On Sunday, May 17, 2015 at 8:39:55 PM UTC-6, Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:

> Or Junkions came along, gathered the wreckage and rebuilt him like they do to
> Springer.

I like this idea. Now we just have to figure out Decepticon Broadside and Completely Different Robot Mode Broadside.

> A lot of the humor falls flat for me, and this is one example. It is
> technically proficient, but just a bit too obvious. There's not even any good
> word play or anything to bring the first part of the question back. "I've
> figured out that we're in big trouble" would have been a little better.

I really think the fact that Kup is upside-down is the actual punchline. I've played around with different possible responses and they're just not as funny to me when he's right-side up.

> If Galvatron recognized his flaws, or actually had moments of brilliance
> despite them, I might think he was a better character than Megatron.

With Megatron, you pretty much always knew what to expect. He came up with a plan, the Autobots showed up, he got mad at Starscream for questioning his brilliance, and then he called the retreat. Galvatron's more of a wild card. Some of his schemes were quite Megatron-esque, while other times he just went berserk and blasted Autobots for the hell of it. Sometimes he fought furiously and sometimes he just stared into a lava pool and wanted to be left the hell alone. Galvatron's flaws arguably make him a less effective Decepticon leader, but it makes him more intriguing as a character.

> Either GI Joe did not take place at the same time as Transformers, or Marissa
> is shockingly young, or Lady Jaye is not her mother. The timing doesn't work
> out -- GI Joe is 1984-1986, and there are no signs of Lady Jaye and Flint
> being an item.

No, there are definitely signs they're together in some capacity. Duke even directly refers to her as Flint's "crazy girlfriend" in an early episode. Is it possible Marissa was born prior to the beginning of the G.I. Joe series? She'd have to be born out of wedlock, but the timeline would work. (Yeah, there's no reference in the show to Lady Jaye being a mom, but it seems like the Joes distance themselves from their private lives. They use military code names, the identities of their family members are classified, etc. Except for the "Captives of Cobra" episode where their family members are specifically targeted, I have no idea which Joes are married, which ones have living relatives, etc.)

Or, conversely, Marissa could have been young and brilliant. In its formative stages, EDC was probably desperate for personnel. Her connections to G.I. Joe probably made her a shoe-in.

> This is one of the best moments of Quintesson humor ever. They are great.

They try to duplicate the joke in "Dark Awakening" when they go, "May I propose an anticipatory snicker of triumph?" but I don't think it works quite as well the second time.

> I think they were never designed to be left running for so long, and they
> just don't have the storage capacity.

Yeah, that seems very likely. Makes you wonder just how long it takes before they start to forget stuff. Prime didn't remember that the Aerialbots saved him, and he didn't remember that Alpha Trion rebuilt him. On the other hand, Thundercracker remembered the Guardian Robots, and that was from the same time period.

> But, you are assuming that Blitzwing remembers the Quintessons from 8 million
> years ago. Equally plausible is that Blitzwing has had some more recent
> encounter.

I think he would remember a more recent encounter, though, wouldn't he? Occam's Razor applied in situations like this. Yeah, it's possible that they captured him, erased his memory circuits but did an incomplete job, etc. but the simpler explanation is that he's having trouble remembering because it was so long ago.

> I really don't think they are miscolored. They are generic Decepticons,
> filling out the ranks, an assortment of characters that you do not know or
> love.

Oh, I actually do love some of them. And I really would spend money on crazy, limited-edition eHobby toys. G1 Cyclonus in Dirge colors. Blitzwing in Air Raid colors. Thundercracker in Onslaught colors. Yeah, I would actually buy all of these.

> Perhaps we should have done an episode a week, rather than such an incredible
> slog all at once...

Sorry about that. I actually paced myself and did an episode every couple of days. I could have posted one episode each day, but I figured it would be better to throw 'em all together in one big file. Well, it's the only five-part episode.

> Are we sure that is the same Goo?

When we see it again in "Chaos"? Yeah, it's specifically identified as Goo #8739B on a display screen. Unless there are multiple Goo planets with the same numerical designation, at which point, well, why?

> Actually, rewatching, Sky Lynx says "if that's the worst the Predacons can
> do, we have nothing to worry about", Marrissa comments on Sky Lynx's
> overconfidence as the Predacons merge, and then Predaking makes his comment
> about Sky Lynx. So, I think this is the first meeting.

It just seems like Predaking is demonstrating an extant awareness of Sky Lynx and his tendency to suffer from overconfidence. Still, I'm willing to accept that this is the first meeting, and the beginning of their glorious rivalry.

> FFoD is, despite the Blurr and Wheelie adventures, probably my favorite
> Transformers storyline, at least in G1. It's what made me love the
> Quintessons.

They could have just ignored the Quintessons as some random weirdness of the movie, but they didn't. I liked that they established the Quintessons as an important third party, because it added a whole new dimension to the storytelling. I didn't mind when it was the standard Autobots vs. Decepticons fare, but when you throw the Quintessons into the mix, it makes the Decepticons more sympathetic by default (and, in some ways, the medium is the message; we're supposed to care about the Decepticon characters to some extent because we own their toys and have an emotional stake in what happens to them). The Decepticons may have been bad, but Quintessons were badder-than-bad. I don't think we were ever supposed to sympathize with them as characters. And, naturally, they never got official toys, which makes it even harder to care about what happens to them!


Zob

No One In Particular

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May 19, 2015, 10:18:33 PM5/19/15
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On 5/19/2015 7:01 PM, Zobovor wrote:
> On Sunday, May 17, 2015 at 8:54:28 PM UTC-6, Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:
>
>> Ugh. Any out of character moment can be explained by just saying "he's
>> insane" and it also removes all motivations.
>
> I just don't agree with this at all. People like to say that Galvatron's insane, but he's really not. He's always

>aware of his surroundings and he knows what he's doing. I think the biggest difference between Megatron and Galvatron

>is that while Megatron is cold and calculating, Galvatron is hot and calculating.
> Zob
>



He has anger control issues. :)

No, actually, control issues period. He seems unwilling or unable to
control himself most of the time, and reacts badly to attempts by others
to control him.

Brian

Zobovor

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May 19, 2015, 10:52:31 PM5/19/15
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On Tuesday, May 19, 2015 at 8:18:33 PM UTC-6, No One In Particular wrote:

> No, actually, control issues period. He seems unwilling or unable to
> control himself most of the time, and reacts badly to attempts by others
> to control him.

Well, Megatron kind of has the same problem. I think the crucial distinction is that Megatron usually has a pretty keen awareness that he's acting contrary to everyone else's interests, and he feels the need to invent justifications for his actions ("I possess the electro-cells; therefore I own them!"). Galvatron holds no such pretenses. He doesn't try to concoct elaborate excuses for his actions. He just does what he wants, reasons be damned.


Zob

I. R. Caughn

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May 22, 2015, 2:23:01 PM5/22/15
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On Thursday, May 14, 2015 at 11:06:39 PM UTC-4, Zobovor wrote:
>
> "Those miserable Skuxxoids!" Cyclonus balks, the only such time on the show that the Skuxxoid species is identified in dialogue. "Eh, they'd sell out to anybody for the right price," Swindle observes. "If anyone would know, Swindle..." remarks Cyclonus. Say what you want about this mini-series, but it does have some clever rejoinders. (This also establishes on some level that Cyclonus does have some memories of his former existence. Cyclonus wasn't around for episodes like "B.O.T.", when Swindle sold off the Combaticon parts for petty cash, but Skywarp sure was!)

I had to pause my reading of this review just to make sure I commented on this. Knowing your justified preference towards presenting as fair and balanced an interpretation of the canon as possible (so as not to mislead newbies into thinking contentious points are straight-up, uncontested facts, I believe you explained at one point), I must express my delighted appreciation that you just went ahead and said "Skywarp" here...

... seeing as how Bombshell was just as likely to have caught wind of Swindle's behaviour back in 1986 (though perhaps he'd be *slightly* less in-the-loop than a 'Con actually living in the space cruiser).

*Not* that I'm trying to dredge up that most legendary/nauseating of controversies... though I will say that it disappoints me that the fandom as a whole doesn't seem to think that there's any character-based logic behind Skywarp becoming Cyclonus. It always seemed organic to me that the boneheadedly loyal screw-up ("Megatron, my leader, we are alive again!"-- aside from Rumble and Soundwave, pretty much everyone else would have just buggered off and/or slagged Megatron if they were the first to awaken) would become the tragically loyal badass with a little help from Unicron upgrading his maturity circuits... but these days, I'm more willing to acknowledge that 90% of that interpretation is generated by my own personal fanon more than anything else...

In any case, I never actually realized the ramifications behind that nifty little dig about Swindle. A fully novel Cyclonus *wouldn't* really have prior knowledge of these guys. Good call!

J

Zobovor

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May 22, 2015, 7:21:59 PM5/22/15
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On Friday, May 22, 2015 at 12:23:01 PM UTC-6, I. R. Caughn wrote:

<snip>

Ah, Mr. Caughn. Nice to see you posting, as always.

> I must express my delighted appreciation that you just went ahead and
> said "Skywarp" here...

Well, it was Skywarp who followed the trail of Combaticon parts in "B.O.T." so he definitely had first-hand knowledge of Swindle's general Skuxxoidishness. (Yes, that's a word.) It's possible Bombshell had his own Swindle experiences, but we actually see Skywarp's encounter with Swindle's greediness, and that counts for a lot.

> *Not* that I'm trying to dredge up that most legendary/nauseating of
> controversies... though I will say that it disappoints me that the fandom as
> a whole doesn't seem to think that there's any character-based logic behind
> Skywarp becoming Cyclonus.

I've recently strongly embraced the idea that there is no single Cyclonus. We were so quick to dismiss the one in the background as irrelevant and argue over whether it was Bombshell or Skywarp who became the One True Cyclonus. We know that there are two different robots running around, each with a similar color scheme but slightly different design, both called Cyclonus. We also know that Cyclonus went through two different voices. Which is more difficult to swallow? That there are two of them running around, or that a single robot just spontaneously changes voices and physical attributes?

(My favorite go-to piece of evidence to support this argument is the scene where one Cyclonus is still carrying his original gun in "The Rebirth" after the other Cyclonus has undergone the Targetmaster conversion. Evidence! ALGORHYTHMS! MATH!!!)


Zob (was expecting a really big car)

Cappeca

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May 27, 2015, 11:37:50 AM5/27/15
to
Sorry for the delay, real life got in the way.
Yes, I did watch the whole thing before posting here, which is why I took so long to reply. I actually went looking for the original brazilian broadcasted episodes - I knew my group had made all of them available on line at some point years go. They still are, but in lower quality due to size constraints:

http://transformersg1episodiosdublados.blogspot.com.br/2012/06/transformers-g1-ep-66-67-desforra.html
http://transformersg1episodiosdublados.blogspot.com.br/2012/06/transformers-g1-ep-68-69-desforra.html
http://transformersg1episodiosdublados.blogspot.com.br/2012/06/transformers-g1-ep-70-desforra-parte-5.html

The series was called "A Desforra" here, which translates simply to "Payback" or "The Payback" if you will. Brazilian voice acting in the G1 series was always of superb quality, that's all I can say to those who are not familiar with it - that and the fact that Wheelie's voice was done by the same guy that did Unicron in the movie, who by the way is an extremely talented actor, amazing human being and an icon in brazilian television, still active at the age of 95, which is remarkable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orlando_Drummond

As for the story, I'm pretty sure Zob and Gustavo covered all the relevant aspects, so I'll just join the discussion to talk about my own impressions. As much as the series is flawed, I enjoyed going after these and watching them again.


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