Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss
Cartoon Viewing Club: Zob's Thoughts on "The Face of the Nijika"
57 views
Skip to first unread message
Zobovor
Feb 14, 2017, 11:37:04 PM2/14/17
to
"The Face of the Nijika" is episode #92 of the original Transformers series' 98-episode run, and first aired on November 20, 1986. It was written by Mary Skreanes and Steve Skeates, the only such Transformers episode to their names. Both have written for the comic book industry, and Mary Skreanes also produced a handful of G.I. Joe and Jem and the Holograms scripts. This is arguably Perceptor's starring episode, which is odd in and of itself, considering most of the spotlight stories for the 1985 toys were in the second season.
Also, this is a super weird story.
We star off with Sky Lynx traveling through space, carrying a group of Autobots. Blurr has been bored during the entire trip, so he gets a little excited when Sky Lynx detects the Decepticons and they divert to investigate. It seems Galvatron has stumbled upon some Quintesson technology called a quadrant lock, a large metallic disk (whose true purpose we will learn later). Galvatron has no idea what the thing is, but despite Cyclonus' warnings, he's determined to "learn the secrets of this disk or die trying!" The Quintessons are aware of Galvatron's interference and have arrived in a spiral cruiser to stop him from tampering with it. They open fire, and the Autobots all pour out of Sky Lynx to deal with the problem.
There are two interesting things about this scene. One, Sky Lynx suggests to the Autobots, "don your rocket packs!" which is consistent with the idea that the Autobots usually cannot fly on Earth unassisted, but not consistent with the way they've all been able to freely fly through space for most of the season (unless the script calls for them to be helpless, as in the beginning of "Five Faces of Darkness" part 3). The other interesting thing is that when Sky Lynx switches from space shuttle mode to robot mode, all the Autobots come rocketing out of his mouth. I guess this makes sense (Sky Lynx's head does form the cabin of his shuttle mode, with the windows becoming his optic sensors) but it's still kind of weird.
We hear a fairly low-key, relaxed melody in the background (the theme from G.I. Joe: the Movie we hear when Cobra Commander's mask falls off to reveal his multi-eyed snakey face) and this same music continues during the battle sequence. It's strangely out of place. It almost gives the impression that the fight isn't really a big deal, and maybe the Autobots aren't at all worried. There's no sense of suspense.
The Quintessons mention that they've had the quadrant lock in place for five thousand years, and they're determined to keep it there. The whole point of the lock isn't really explained until the very end of the episode, but the idea is that the Quintessons felt threatened by the people of planet Zamojin, so they installed the lock to trap them on the planet. It will all make sense eventually. The Quintessons realize the best way to get rid of the interfering Transformers is to unlock the disk remotely and allow them all to fall into it. Perceptor, now in microscope mode, is examining the disk in question and observes that it acts as a seal, plugging up a warp in space. His discovery becomes moot when the Quintesson ship sails through the opening and every one of the Autobots is sucked in along with it. Cyclonus, too, has been thrown into the warp by Galvatron, who is ranting and raving about how he found the disk first, and how the Quintessons must not steal it from him. He's obviously having one of his crazy days.
One odd thing about the Quintessons in this episode is that they don't really swap faces at all. One of them, voiced by Rege Cordic, uses the green face of doubt, with spikes all over its head (sometimes called the face of judgment), throughout the entire episode. The other Quintesson, played by Roger C. Carmel, is using the face of laughter, with the black moustache and orange crown (also sometimes called the face of war), throughout the episode. It's because of episodes like this that I tend to associate certain faces with certain voice actors. (I tend to associate the face of bitterness, the round plump one, with Jack Angel's voice characterization.)
One of the Quintessons suggests that the Transformers have a one in 82.5 million chance of making it through alive. They do, of course... all five of them. Does that mean there was a one in 412.5 million chance of all five of them surviving? Stuff like this strains credibility. That's only the beginning of the crazy coincidences, though. Passing through the warp has damaged the isolator key on board the Quintesson ship, the device that can remotely open or shut the lock on the space warp. Without a means of opening it, they will be stuck on the other side of the space warp. One of the Quintessons observes that Perceptor is with the group, though, and recognizes that he's equipped with a universal emulator, a component which, I presume, can mimic the function of other components. Their plan is to send the Sharkticons to recover him so that they can extract the component and use it to replace the damaged isolator key. Perceptor, meanwhile, has also been affected by the passage through the warp and is stuck in microscope mode, the second such time in the series (the first being when his cybertonium was deteriorating in "Desertion of the Dinobots").
The citizens of planet Zamojin all look like they're from feudal Japan. "Behold! Fire in the sky!" proclaims one of them, pointing to the Perceptor-shaped meteorite that's falling to the ground. "War of the Dinobots!" proclaims another, who thinks they're playing another game of Transformers episode titles. (Something that will quickly become evident about the Zamojins is that they're all voiced by the principal actors working on the show, so they all kinda-sorta sound like Rodimus, Ultra Magnus, Perceptor, and Cyclonus.) The Zamojins recognize the Quintesson ship, identifying the Quintessons as "devils" who have returned to their world, but they promise death to them and prepare to advance upon them. Unlike the Titans from "The God Gambit," who evidently had a prior Transformer visit that resulted in their people worshipping them as gods, the people of Zamojin had a less-than-pleasant experience with their first encounter with Quintesson technology.
A blacksmith (whose name we will learn as Katsu Don) is the first to spot Perceptor and mounts his alien steed, Brutolo, who is sort of a cross between a furry lizard and a fish. They retrieve Perceptor, still stuck as a gigantic microscope, and drag him back to his camp. Elsewhere, the Autobots are recovering from their impromptu landing. Rodimus crashed into a tree, but he didn't even damage it. Ultra Magnus surmises that everything on the planet has a far more dense molecular structure than they're accustomed to. This is certainly an interesting story premise. This means that the Zamojin weapons and even the Zamojins themselves are tougher than Transformer metals. Of more immediate concern is the fact that Blurr landed on a rock and has mangled a support strut in his leg, presumably the Transformer equivalent to breaking a bone. He says it's causing him intense pain because it's pressing on a sensory circuit, to the point where he's having difficulty walking. If there was a storytelling edict that the Transformers had to be treated Just Like Humans, then this episode follows that to its logical conclusion. Blurr won't just be shrugging off the damage in a few seconds so he'll be fine in the next scene; this is a long-term problem. We know Transformers have internal repair systems that can repair damage, but apparently this kind of damage is not easily remedied.
Back at his camp, Katsu Don is initiating a little bit of impromptu surgery on Perceptor after pulling some tools from the forge. "What in the name of Alpha Trion?!" he balks as the alien heads towards him with a couple of cutting implements and begins to extract Perceptor's Autobot symbol. It's not just a badge with a robot face on it, though—behind it is this pentagonal-shaped block of technology. It just happens to be the universal emulator that the Quintessons were talking about earlier. So many contrived coincidences. Perceptor fires off a distress call to the other Autobots. We don't quite know yet why this is a bad thing, exactly, but it's a suspenseful enough moment that we must now cut to commercial.
The Quintessons pinpoint the source of Perceptor's transmission, just outside the capital city of Tozin, and a Quintesson Judge who is missing his moustache sends the Sharkticons down to the planet to scoop him up. We just barely catch a glimpse of Cyclonus sitting on the outside of the cruiser before the scene fades. Back on the planet, Katsu Don delivers Perceptor's insignia to a 1:3 scale doll that's dressed a little like a Japanese geisha, identifying it as Nijika. She's positioned with a folding fan covering her face, but as Katsu Don lowers it, he reveals that the doll is a robot and that its face is just a mess of mechanical parts. He lowers his gaze, and somehow shoves the Autobot symbol, and the foot-thick universal emulator, into the doll's face. He runs off to address the approaching Sharkticons, while Nijika's internal mechanics link up to the emulator and the Autobot symbol itself undergoes a slight transformation as it becomes a new face for Nijika.
As I said. Weird episode.
"Forever is a Long Time Coming" establishes that the Autobot symbol was originally the "slave brand," essentially a merchandising logo that identified a robot as a Quintesson product. The function of the emulator must have been of Quintesson devising, though, because they knew about it right away. This makes me wonder if other robots have symbols with special functions, or whether Perceptor is completely unique. (We know Skyfire doesn't have a universal emulator, at least.) I'm not sure why the Quintessons would install such a feature in a consumer product in the first place.
Outside, the Sharkticons are no match for Katsu Don. They arrive riding on flying skiffs, but Katsu Don kicks one squarely in the chest and gives the other a high-five right in the teeth with his other foot. He throws them both back on the skiff as it's automatically recalled to the Quintesson ship. We learn very late in the episode that the Zamojins have powerful mental abilities, but that almost takes a backseat to their sheer physical strength. If the Autobots allied themselves with these folks, they could win the war with the Decepticons in, like, seventeen seconds.
The Zamojins, by the way, are another race of huge aliens who are approximately the height of Transformers. (Tiny humanoids like the ones from Nebulos or Earth seem to be the exception in the galaxy rather than the rule.) Around this time, Nijika saunters out and commends Katsu Don on his handiwork... in Perceptor's voice. I'm not really sure whether Perceptor's consciousness has been transferred to the doll, or if the doll is just borrowing Perceptor's speech synthesizer, but Katsu Don is surprised that she can talk, and she's surprised that he's surprised. What surprises me, personally, is that Perceptor was still speaking after the emulator was extracted (it's already out by the time Perceptor cries, "He's removing my insignia!")
Elsewhere, Blurr is still suffering from his strut damage. At first, he's ranting about how he'd switch into car mode and race everybody off the planet (not sure how that would work exactly), but then he's overwhelmed by the pain and has to stop. He makes a conscious effort to slow down and tells Rodimus: "Go... find... Perceptor. You fix him... maybe he can fix me." It's really interesting that Blurr can actually speak at a normal rate of speed if he tries super hard. "Fight or Flee" suggests that he's got an issue with his timing program, so maybe it's the sort of brain damage that, like the reprogramming done to Omega Supreme, can be overcome with substantial effort. (We've seen that Wheelie sometimes slips and forgets to rhyme, so that's obviously not a hard and fast rule, either. Basically, there are no rules to Transformer speech quirks. Even Warpath doesn't litter every single sentence with sound effects.)
So, Blurr bids Rodimus and Magnus good-bye in a dozen different languages: "Right, so leave! Beat it! Amscray! Split! Depart! Vamoose! Evaporate! Move it! Sayonara! Dasvidanya! Good-bye!" Funny that he's using Japanese given the theme of this episode. Around this time, though, a group of Zamojins find him, and Blurr is in no condition to resist them. He gets captured off-screen, because the next time we see him, he's being suspended over a vat.
Back at Katsu Don's home, he is still expressing amazement that Nijika/Perceptor is up and about. Perceptor presses for more information and we get a two-minute long flashback scene that finally explains just what the hell is going on in this episode. It seems that about five thousand years ago, an ancestor named Niko Don created a "flying tower" (a spaceship) so that the Zamojin people could explore the heavens. It's a little weird to see all these feudal-era Japanese folks in kimonos with a rocket and gantry in the background. Anyway, Niko Don created a pilot to ride the ship and christened her Nijika, the Sky Dancer. (Wasn't Sky Dancers the name of a series of flying dolls by Galoob?) Back then, Nijika could giggle and laugh. The Empress (voiced by the ubiquitous Mona Marshall) summons the power of the Zamojin statue guardian, Kodu Ri, which is a gigantic Buddha-esque golden construct. The crystals in the foreheads of the Zamojins all light up, the beams focusing on Kodu Ri, which somehow magnifies their telepathic powers and allows them to initiate the space journey.
Or, at least, it would have initiated the space journey... if some five-faced meddlers hadn't interfered. It's like they were waiting for this species to develop space travel until they finally introduced themselves. They're like the Vulcans from Star Trek, only with tentacles. Anyway, a couple of Quintessons arrive on their flying skiffs, blasting Zamojins left and right, sending Nijika for a long walk off a short pier, and sabotaging the Kodu Ri statue. It's so bizarre to watch these seemingly gleeful Quintessons as they go for a joyride through the statue, smirking playfully as they yank cables from their moorings. As if that wasn't enough, they also activated the quadrant lock, blocking the light from the surrounding stars from making it to the planet. (You would think the entire planet would be pitch black if this were the case. Hmm.) Katsu Don explains that this was when Nijika was damaged, losing her face, but without the ability to communicate telepathically with Kodu Ri, Niko Don lacked the knowledge or ability to make repairs. Fast forward five thousand years, and the Zamojins have led a sheltered existence, cut off from other worlds and unable to develop their telepathic powers to their full potential.
The name of Niko Don, incidentally, is likely a play on nikudon, a Japanese dish of pork on rice. This would make sense given that his descendant, Katsu Don, shares his name with katsudon, a Japanese fried pork dish.
On board the Quintesson ship, the judges are reeling at the damages done to the Sharkticons. They know their only option is to go to the planet and retrieve the isolator key themselves, but they know the Zamojins will rip them apart if they go. Luckily, Cyclonus offers his services. Even though Galvatron is completely mad, he's still trying to strike a bargain that will make his leader happy. If the Quintessons let Galvatron take home the quadrant lock disc as his shiny new toy, he conditionally agrees to venture down to the planet and do the Quintessons' bidding. "But not alone, of course," he says. "Unlike your Sharkticons, I am not stupid!" He grabs one of the Quintessons' tentacles. Cyclonus is oddly mellow in this episode, the same way he was in "The Quintesson Journal."
Rodimus and Magnus are in vehicle mode, hunting for Perceptor, when they encounter a roving band of Zamojin marauders who immediately go on the offensive. In theory, our heroes should be in some serious trouble right about now, since the Zamojins should be able to smash them like they were made of tin foil. Rather than transforming to robot mode and preparing for battle, they just sit there as vehicles and let the Zamojins hit them with morning stars and hammers. Rodimus edges towards a cliff face and teeters right off the side. Cut to commercial.
It's only after the fall that Rodimus thinks to transform, slowing his descent by grasping for an outcropping that's conveniently jutting out mere feet from the ground. One supposes the fall would have killed him if he hadn't done this. One oddity of this scene is that when Rodimus reverts back to vehicle form, he actually transforms into Hot Rod's car mode, after which the trailer section appears from somewhere off-screen and reunites with him, Optimus Prime style. This is slightly more accurate to the way the Hasbro toy worked (and it was possible to connect the G1 Hot Rod toy to the Rodimus Prime toy's trailer, though it wasn't a perfect fit) but in the show, Rodimus is supposed to be able to turn into the entire vehicle mode.
The Zamojins confront the remaining "rolling demon," but Ultra Magnus isn't having any of this, so he fires off some warning shots. "Stop! I don't wish to harm you!" he protests, as if he was even capable of doing so. A Zamojin chucks a mace at him, but Rodimus intercepts it with a missile, warning them that he's still got one in reserve. (The Rodimus toy didn't shoot missiles. Had it been released during the Diaclone days, I'm sure the transformed trailer would have been equipped with a couple of spring-powered launchers.) The Zamojins, who are more powerful than the Autobots and outnumber them two to one, decide to run away.
Rodimus and Magnus make it to Katsu Don's place and find Perceptor's body on the work bench, still in microscope mode. (When Ultra Magnus goes to pick up Perceptor, at first he's not present on the table at all, and then when Magnus bends down to lift him, suddenly Perceptor is there, but he's on the floor, not on the table.) They head towards Tozin to look for the missing emulator.
Preposterously, Cyclonus and one of the Quintesson Judges are just traipsing around out in the open, through a huge crowd of Zamojins, without any repercussions. Apparently, the script called for all the Zamojins to be dressed in costume—sort of a Devil Spawn Mardi Gras—but the animation doesn't really support this idea. Plenty of Zamojins are walking around without masks at all, and this still doesn't explain why Cyclonus is twice as tall as anyone else in the crowd. It just feels like a huge changed premise and an enormous cheat.
Blurr, meanwhile, is going to be dropped into a molten vat. He doesn't seem terribly concerned about it. "How hot do you suppose a hot tub is? A thousand degrees? Two, maybe? Hot enough to unbend a strut, maybe? How about a nice little soak, suckers!"
Cyclonus attempts to incite the crowd, because he wants to see Blurr get smelted, despite the Quintesson's urgings to pipe down. "Vengeance now!" he demands, and many of the Zamojins predictably follow suit. "You've never understood mob psychology, have you?" Cyclonus says to the Quintesson. It's pretty much a throwaway line, but in the never-ending debate as to which of the 1984-85 characters "really" became Cyclonus, fans (including myself) like to point to the mob psychology lesson as evidence that this is the one that used to be Bombshell, given his experience with mind control and the likelihood that he, and not Skywarp, would know more about psychological warfare and such.
The modern-day Empress (voiced by Samantha "Jem" Newark) halts the proceedings and unveiled the ressurected Nijika to an astonished crowd. From within the doll, Perceptor is full of useful exposition, revealing that the Quintessons aren't devils at all but regular, mortal five-faced assholes, that there is a chance to bring the stars back to Zamojin, and that maybe they'd better not melt Blurr just yet. The Quintesson with Cyclonus tries to rile up the crowd in the same way that Cyclonus did, and fails miserably. "The doll is possessed! Don't listen!" he demands, but this just results in the entire Zamojin crowd rushing the proceedings. Cyclonus chaztised him before rushing forward and rescuing Nijika. After all, she's equipped with the emulator, which is the only thing that can open the quadrant lock so Cyclonus can get back home. Katsu Don grabs Cyclonus by the legs before he flies off.
Elsewhere, Ultra Magnus has finally remembered that he's a car carrier, and is toting Perceptor around in his trailer. Not counting things like toy commercials and deleted movie scenes and commercial bumpers, this is the very first time Magnus has actually carried someone in his car carrier mode. Hell, even Optimus Prime loaded Dinobots or Aerialbots up into his trailer a number of times. Also, Rodimus is back to being Hot Rod again. His trailer is nowhere to be found, and he's even got the exposed engine again.
There's a fun little moment when the Quintesson ship flies by and Magnus just casually peers through Perceptor's lenses to get a better look at it.
Once on board the Quintesson ship, Katsu Don falls off of Cyclonus and is promptly immobilized by one of the Quintessons. The animation doesn't convey this very well, but he actually slips some sort of control band over Katsu Don's head, paralyzing him. The Quintesson demands that Perceptor surrender the emulator or else he will kill the Zamojin. Perceptor the geisha doll reluctantly agrees, removing the Autobot symbol that is his face. At this point, though, the doll is rendered inert and collapses to the ground. The first Quintesson is still ordering Perceptor to fix the isolator key, but his buddy grabs the immobilized doll and dismisses it as garbage, throwing it out of the ship where it falls back down to the planet and falls past Blurr.
The Quintessons are set to go. The universal emulator is plug-and-play; attaching it to their ship's console is apparently sufficient to enable it to mimic the ability of the damaged isolator key.
Blurr shouts some idle threats in the Quintessons' direction before one of them produces a gun (how do you operate a gun when you have tentacles?!) and cuts through the rope suspending Blurr. He falls into the molten pit, but he seems to be enjoying it. The sounds he makes are rather, hmm, provocative. "Hood in place, wheels in place, bumpers in place," he rattles off, despite being a flying car with NO WHEELS. (I don't care that Victor Caroli calls him "the fastest car on wheels" in a narration clip. You can clearly see the distinct lack of wheels as he launches into the Quintesson ship, making TIE Fighter sounds, and knocking the universal emulator out of the Quintesson's tentacles as he rockets past him.) Is it petty to mention that he switches to car mode but we don't hear him make the transformation sound effect?
"Your life is over, Autobot!" Cyclonus promises Blurr, training a gun on him and standing there for several seconds, giving Ultra Magnus time to pounce upon him from behind. How the hell did Magnus and Rodimus get on board the Quintesson ship? Do they turn into flying cars, too?
Rodimus frees Katsu Don, who goes on a rampage and screams, "Devils... DEVILS!" before he leaps out of the ship. Magnus, who has apprehended Cyclonus, leaps off after him. Rodimus orders Blurr to evacuate, and he does so, after snatching up the universal emulator. It's almost an afterthought that he grabs it, despite the damn thing being the whole point of the episode.
The Quintessons seem to think they have the upper hand. "There's nowhere to run, fools!" they promise the Autobots. "You'll be trapped in Quadrant X forever!" The ship departs, with Cyclonus flying off after them.
The emulator is returned to its rightful place, and once it is plugged in, Perceptor springs back to life. "Last time, they took the stars. What will they steal from us this time?" a worried Empress wonders. Perceptor informs the Empress that the Quintessons won't be taking anything this time—"they're about to learn the joy of giving!" This is the closest thing we get to an explanation, but it stands to reason that if Perceptor's personality was contained within the emulator, then he was able to somehow sabotage the Quintesson ship and manipulate the function of the isolator key.
With the quadrant lock open for good, the starlight returns to the planet and the Zamojins regain their telepathic abilities. The crystals within their foreheads all illuminate brightly, converging upon the Kodu Ri statue, which is likewise reactivated. The Autobots all stand there with their mouths wide open, dumbfounded. (This scene, perhaps more than any other, emphasizes the weird color models the Autobots have. The inside of Rodimus and Perceptor's mouths are black, but the inside of Ultra Magnus' mouth is red, and the inside of Blurr's mouth is blue.)
Perceptor surmises that this was the true reason the Quintessons were so intent upon sealing off the Zamojins from the rest of the galaxy. "In time," he estimates, "their capabilities will become as limitless as thought itself!" So, in addition to being made of indestructible, super-dense matter, the Zamojins with their telepathic technology are also going to be the braniacs of the universe. These guys are, like, the gods of the Transformers canon.
Perceptor suggests to Katsu Don that he continue Niko Don's space faring experiments, now that he has the knowledge and ability to do so. "You and Nijika will meet again," he promises, "out among the stars!" Suffice to say, Nijika doesn't appear in any future episodes after this one. Blurr appears in the next commercial bumper, though, still with absolutely no wheels in evidence. (No, I am not letting this one drop.)
We also never find out whether the Quintessons made good on their promise to let Galvatron take home a quadrant lock disc to decorate Chaar with. My guess is that they did not.
I can't call this a favorite episode. Some installments of the show exist to promote new toys, and some of them are really engrossing stories with meaningful character development, but this one is neither. It's just Perceptor playing dress-up as Kimono Barbie. There are some good moments (the idea of Blurr actually slowing down for once, in a moment of crisis, is an interesting facet to the character, and I love the bit with Magnus using Perceptor as a telescope) but other than that, it's just another badly-animated Akom episode with a meandering story and not much punch to it.
Zob (every year, like clockwork, customers come to the store on Valentine's Day and ask, "Where's the rest of your candy? Where are all the stuffed animals? Don't you have more cards?" Dude, it's three in the afternoon on February 14th. Do the math.)
Also, this is a super weird story.
We star off with Sky Lynx traveling through space, carrying a group of Autobots. Blurr has been bored during the entire trip, so he gets a little excited when Sky Lynx detects the Decepticons and they divert to investigate. It seems Galvatron has stumbled upon some Quintesson technology called a quadrant lock, a large metallic disk (whose true purpose we will learn later). Galvatron has no idea what the thing is, but despite Cyclonus' warnings, he's determined to "learn the secrets of this disk or die trying!" The Quintessons are aware of Galvatron's interference and have arrived in a spiral cruiser to stop him from tampering with it. They open fire, and the Autobots all pour out of Sky Lynx to deal with the problem.
There are two interesting things about this scene. One, Sky Lynx suggests to the Autobots, "don your rocket packs!" which is consistent with the idea that the Autobots usually cannot fly on Earth unassisted, but not consistent with the way they've all been able to freely fly through space for most of the season (unless the script calls for them to be helpless, as in the beginning of "Five Faces of Darkness" part 3). The other interesting thing is that when Sky Lynx switches from space shuttle mode to robot mode, all the Autobots come rocketing out of his mouth. I guess this makes sense (Sky Lynx's head does form the cabin of his shuttle mode, with the windows becoming his optic sensors) but it's still kind of weird.
We hear a fairly low-key, relaxed melody in the background (the theme from G.I. Joe: the Movie we hear when Cobra Commander's mask falls off to reveal his multi-eyed snakey face) and this same music continues during the battle sequence. It's strangely out of place. It almost gives the impression that the fight isn't really a big deal, and maybe the Autobots aren't at all worried. There's no sense of suspense.
The Quintessons mention that they've had the quadrant lock in place for five thousand years, and they're determined to keep it there. The whole point of the lock isn't really explained until the very end of the episode, but the idea is that the Quintessons felt threatened by the people of planet Zamojin, so they installed the lock to trap them on the planet. It will all make sense eventually. The Quintessons realize the best way to get rid of the interfering Transformers is to unlock the disk remotely and allow them all to fall into it. Perceptor, now in microscope mode, is examining the disk in question and observes that it acts as a seal, plugging up a warp in space. His discovery becomes moot when the Quintesson ship sails through the opening and every one of the Autobots is sucked in along with it. Cyclonus, too, has been thrown into the warp by Galvatron, who is ranting and raving about how he found the disk first, and how the Quintessons must not steal it from him. He's obviously having one of his crazy days.
One odd thing about the Quintessons in this episode is that they don't really swap faces at all. One of them, voiced by Rege Cordic, uses the green face of doubt, with spikes all over its head (sometimes called the face of judgment), throughout the entire episode. The other Quintesson, played by Roger C. Carmel, is using the face of laughter, with the black moustache and orange crown (also sometimes called the face of war), throughout the episode. It's because of episodes like this that I tend to associate certain faces with certain voice actors. (I tend to associate the face of bitterness, the round plump one, with Jack Angel's voice characterization.)
One of the Quintessons suggests that the Transformers have a one in 82.5 million chance of making it through alive. They do, of course... all five of them. Does that mean there was a one in 412.5 million chance of all five of them surviving? Stuff like this strains credibility. That's only the beginning of the crazy coincidences, though. Passing through the warp has damaged the isolator key on board the Quintesson ship, the device that can remotely open or shut the lock on the space warp. Without a means of opening it, they will be stuck on the other side of the space warp. One of the Quintessons observes that Perceptor is with the group, though, and recognizes that he's equipped with a universal emulator, a component which, I presume, can mimic the function of other components. Their plan is to send the Sharkticons to recover him so that they can extract the component and use it to replace the damaged isolator key. Perceptor, meanwhile, has also been affected by the passage through the warp and is stuck in microscope mode, the second such time in the series (the first being when his cybertonium was deteriorating in "Desertion of the Dinobots").
The citizens of planet Zamojin all look like they're from feudal Japan. "Behold! Fire in the sky!" proclaims one of them, pointing to the Perceptor-shaped meteorite that's falling to the ground. "War of the Dinobots!" proclaims another, who thinks they're playing another game of Transformers episode titles. (Something that will quickly become evident about the Zamojins is that they're all voiced by the principal actors working on the show, so they all kinda-sorta sound like Rodimus, Ultra Magnus, Perceptor, and Cyclonus.) The Zamojins recognize the Quintesson ship, identifying the Quintessons as "devils" who have returned to their world, but they promise death to them and prepare to advance upon them. Unlike the Titans from "The God Gambit," who evidently had a prior Transformer visit that resulted in their people worshipping them as gods, the people of Zamojin had a less-than-pleasant experience with their first encounter with Quintesson technology.
A blacksmith (whose name we will learn as Katsu Don) is the first to spot Perceptor and mounts his alien steed, Brutolo, who is sort of a cross between a furry lizard and a fish. They retrieve Perceptor, still stuck as a gigantic microscope, and drag him back to his camp. Elsewhere, the Autobots are recovering from their impromptu landing. Rodimus crashed into a tree, but he didn't even damage it. Ultra Magnus surmises that everything on the planet has a far more dense molecular structure than they're accustomed to. This is certainly an interesting story premise. This means that the Zamojin weapons and even the Zamojins themselves are tougher than Transformer metals. Of more immediate concern is the fact that Blurr landed on a rock and has mangled a support strut in his leg, presumably the Transformer equivalent to breaking a bone. He says it's causing him intense pain because it's pressing on a sensory circuit, to the point where he's having difficulty walking. If there was a storytelling edict that the Transformers had to be treated Just Like Humans, then this episode follows that to its logical conclusion. Blurr won't just be shrugging off the damage in a few seconds so he'll be fine in the next scene; this is a long-term problem. We know Transformers have internal repair systems that can repair damage, but apparently this kind of damage is not easily remedied.
Back at his camp, Katsu Don is initiating a little bit of impromptu surgery on Perceptor after pulling some tools from the forge. "What in the name of Alpha Trion?!" he balks as the alien heads towards him with a couple of cutting implements and begins to extract Perceptor's Autobot symbol. It's not just a badge with a robot face on it, though—behind it is this pentagonal-shaped block of technology. It just happens to be the universal emulator that the Quintessons were talking about earlier. So many contrived coincidences. Perceptor fires off a distress call to the other Autobots. We don't quite know yet why this is a bad thing, exactly, but it's a suspenseful enough moment that we must now cut to commercial.
The Quintessons pinpoint the source of Perceptor's transmission, just outside the capital city of Tozin, and a Quintesson Judge who is missing his moustache sends the Sharkticons down to the planet to scoop him up. We just barely catch a glimpse of Cyclonus sitting on the outside of the cruiser before the scene fades. Back on the planet, Katsu Don delivers Perceptor's insignia to a 1:3 scale doll that's dressed a little like a Japanese geisha, identifying it as Nijika. She's positioned with a folding fan covering her face, but as Katsu Don lowers it, he reveals that the doll is a robot and that its face is just a mess of mechanical parts. He lowers his gaze, and somehow shoves the Autobot symbol, and the foot-thick universal emulator, into the doll's face. He runs off to address the approaching Sharkticons, while Nijika's internal mechanics link up to the emulator and the Autobot symbol itself undergoes a slight transformation as it becomes a new face for Nijika.
As I said. Weird episode.
"Forever is a Long Time Coming" establishes that the Autobot symbol was originally the "slave brand," essentially a merchandising logo that identified a robot as a Quintesson product. The function of the emulator must have been of Quintesson devising, though, because they knew about it right away. This makes me wonder if other robots have symbols with special functions, or whether Perceptor is completely unique. (We know Skyfire doesn't have a universal emulator, at least.) I'm not sure why the Quintessons would install such a feature in a consumer product in the first place.
Outside, the Sharkticons are no match for Katsu Don. They arrive riding on flying skiffs, but Katsu Don kicks one squarely in the chest and gives the other a high-five right in the teeth with his other foot. He throws them both back on the skiff as it's automatically recalled to the Quintesson ship. We learn very late in the episode that the Zamojins have powerful mental abilities, but that almost takes a backseat to their sheer physical strength. If the Autobots allied themselves with these folks, they could win the war with the Decepticons in, like, seventeen seconds.
The Zamojins, by the way, are another race of huge aliens who are approximately the height of Transformers. (Tiny humanoids like the ones from Nebulos or Earth seem to be the exception in the galaxy rather than the rule.) Around this time, Nijika saunters out and commends Katsu Don on his handiwork... in Perceptor's voice. I'm not really sure whether Perceptor's consciousness has been transferred to the doll, or if the doll is just borrowing Perceptor's speech synthesizer, but Katsu Don is surprised that she can talk, and she's surprised that he's surprised. What surprises me, personally, is that Perceptor was still speaking after the emulator was extracted (it's already out by the time Perceptor cries, "He's removing my insignia!")
Elsewhere, Blurr is still suffering from his strut damage. At first, he's ranting about how he'd switch into car mode and race everybody off the planet (not sure how that would work exactly), but then he's overwhelmed by the pain and has to stop. He makes a conscious effort to slow down and tells Rodimus: "Go... find... Perceptor. You fix him... maybe he can fix me." It's really interesting that Blurr can actually speak at a normal rate of speed if he tries super hard. "Fight or Flee" suggests that he's got an issue with his timing program, so maybe it's the sort of brain damage that, like the reprogramming done to Omega Supreme, can be overcome with substantial effort. (We've seen that Wheelie sometimes slips and forgets to rhyme, so that's obviously not a hard and fast rule, either. Basically, there are no rules to Transformer speech quirks. Even Warpath doesn't litter every single sentence with sound effects.)
So, Blurr bids Rodimus and Magnus good-bye in a dozen different languages: "Right, so leave! Beat it! Amscray! Split! Depart! Vamoose! Evaporate! Move it! Sayonara! Dasvidanya! Good-bye!" Funny that he's using Japanese given the theme of this episode. Around this time, though, a group of Zamojins find him, and Blurr is in no condition to resist them. He gets captured off-screen, because the next time we see him, he's being suspended over a vat.
Back at Katsu Don's home, he is still expressing amazement that Nijika/Perceptor is up and about. Perceptor presses for more information and we get a two-minute long flashback scene that finally explains just what the hell is going on in this episode. It seems that about five thousand years ago, an ancestor named Niko Don created a "flying tower" (a spaceship) so that the Zamojin people could explore the heavens. It's a little weird to see all these feudal-era Japanese folks in kimonos with a rocket and gantry in the background. Anyway, Niko Don created a pilot to ride the ship and christened her Nijika, the Sky Dancer. (Wasn't Sky Dancers the name of a series of flying dolls by Galoob?) Back then, Nijika could giggle and laugh. The Empress (voiced by the ubiquitous Mona Marshall) summons the power of the Zamojin statue guardian, Kodu Ri, which is a gigantic Buddha-esque golden construct. The crystals in the foreheads of the Zamojins all light up, the beams focusing on Kodu Ri, which somehow magnifies their telepathic powers and allows them to initiate the space journey.
Or, at least, it would have initiated the space journey... if some five-faced meddlers hadn't interfered. It's like they were waiting for this species to develop space travel until they finally introduced themselves. They're like the Vulcans from Star Trek, only with tentacles. Anyway, a couple of Quintessons arrive on their flying skiffs, blasting Zamojins left and right, sending Nijika for a long walk off a short pier, and sabotaging the Kodu Ri statue. It's so bizarre to watch these seemingly gleeful Quintessons as they go for a joyride through the statue, smirking playfully as they yank cables from their moorings. As if that wasn't enough, they also activated the quadrant lock, blocking the light from the surrounding stars from making it to the planet. (You would think the entire planet would be pitch black if this were the case. Hmm.) Katsu Don explains that this was when Nijika was damaged, losing her face, but without the ability to communicate telepathically with Kodu Ri, Niko Don lacked the knowledge or ability to make repairs. Fast forward five thousand years, and the Zamojins have led a sheltered existence, cut off from other worlds and unable to develop their telepathic powers to their full potential.
The name of Niko Don, incidentally, is likely a play on nikudon, a Japanese dish of pork on rice. This would make sense given that his descendant, Katsu Don, shares his name with katsudon, a Japanese fried pork dish.
On board the Quintesson ship, the judges are reeling at the damages done to the Sharkticons. They know their only option is to go to the planet and retrieve the isolator key themselves, but they know the Zamojins will rip them apart if they go. Luckily, Cyclonus offers his services. Even though Galvatron is completely mad, he's still trying to strike a bargain that will make his leader happy. If the Quintessons let Galvatron take home the quadrant lock disc as his shiny new toy, he conditionally agrees to venture down to the planet and do the Quintessons' bidding. "But not alone, of course," he says. "Unlike your Sharkticons, I am not stupid!" He grabs one of the Quintessons' tentacles. Cyclonus is oddly mellow in this episode, the same way he was in "The Quintesson Journal."
Rodimus and Magnus are in vehicle mode, hunting for Perceptor, when they encounter a roving band of Zamojin marauders who immediately go on the offensive. In theory, our heroes should be in some serious trouble right about now, since the Zamojins should be able to smash them like they were made of tin foil. Rather than transforming to robot mode and preparing for battle, they just sit there as vehicles and let the Zamojins hit them with morning stars and hammers. Rodimus edges towards a cliff face and teeters right off the side. Cut to commercial.
It's only after the fall that Rodimus thinks to transform, slowing his descent by grasping for an outcropping that's conveniently jutting out mere feet from the ground. One supposes the fall would have killed him if he hadn't done this. One oddity of this scene is that when Rodimus reverts back to vehicle form, he actually transforms into Hot Rod's car mode, after which the trailer section appears from somewhere off-screen and reunites with him, Optimus Prime style. This is slightly more accurate to the way the Hasbro toy worked (and it was possible to connect the G1 Hot Rod toy to the Rodimus Prime toy's trailer, though it wasn't a perfect fit) but in the show, Rodimus is supposed to be able to turn into the entire vehicle mode.
The Zamojins confront the remaining "rolling demon," but Ultra Magnus isn't having any of this, so he fires off some warning shots. "Stop! I don't wish to harm you!" he protests, as if he was even capable of doing so. A Zamojin chucks a mace at him, but Rodimus intercepts it with a missile, warning them that he's still got one in reserve. (The Rodimus toy didn't shoot missiles. Had it been released during the Diaclone days, I'm sure the transformed trailer would have been equipped with a couple of spring-powered launchers.) The Zamojins, who are more powerful than the Autobots and outnumber them two to one, decide to run away.
Rodimus and Magnus make it to Katsu Don's place and find Perceptor's body on the work bench, still in microscope mode. (When Ultra Magnus goes to pick up Perceptor, at first he's not present on the table at all, and then when Magnus bends down to lift him, suddenly Perceptor is there, but he's on the floor, not on the table.) They head towards Tozin to look for the missing emulator.
Preposterously, Cyclonus and one of the Quintesson Judges are just traipsing around out in the open, through a huge crowd of Zamojins, without any repercussions. Apparently, the script called for all the Zamojins to be dressed in costume—sort of a Devil Spawn Mardi Gras—but the animation doesn't really support this idea. Plenty of Zamojins are walking around without masks at all, and this still doesn't explain why Cyclonus is twice as tall as anyone else in the crowd. It just feels like a huge changed premise and an enormous cheat.
Blurr, meanwhile, is going to be dropped into a molten vat. He doesn't seem terribly concerned about it. "How hot do you suppose a hot tub is? A thousand degrees? Two, maybe? Hot enough to unbend a strut, maybe? How about a nice little soak, suckers!"
Cyclonus attempts to incite the crowd, because he wants to see Blurr get smelted, despite the Quintesson's urgings to pipe down. "Vengeance now!" he demands, and many of the Zamojins predictably follow suit. "You've never understood mob psychology, have you?" Cyclonus says to the Quintesson. It's pretty much a throwaway line, but in the never-ending debate as to which of the 1984-85 characters "really" became Cyclonus, fans (including myself) like to point to the mob psychology lesson as evidence that this is the one that used to be Bombshell, given his experience with mind control and the likelihood that he, and not Skywarp, would know more about psychological warfare and such.
The modern-day Empress (voiced by Samantha "Jem" Newark) halts the proceedings and unveiled the ressurected Nijika to an astonished crowd. From within the doll, Perceptor is full of useful exposition, revealing that the Quintessons aren't devils at all but regular, mortal five-faced assholes, that there is a chance to bring the stars back to Zamojin, and that maybe they'd better not melt Blurr just yet. The Quintesson with Cyclonus tries to rile up the crowd in the same way that Cyclonus did, and fails miserably. "The doll is possessed! Don't listen!" he demands, but this just results in the entire Zamojin crowd rushing the proceedings. Cyclonus chaztised him before rushing forward and rescuing Nijika. After all, she's equipped with the emulator, which is the only thing that can open the quadrant lock so Cyclonus can get back home. Katsu Don grabs Cyclonus by the legs before he flies off.
Elsewhere, Ultra Magnus has finally remembered that he's a car carrier, and is toting Perceptor around in his trailer. Not counting things like toy commercials and deleted movie scenes and commercial bumpers, this is the very first time Magnus has actually carried someone in his car carrier mode. Hell, even Optimus Prime loaded Dinobots or Aerialbots up into his trailer a number of times. Also, Rodimus is back to being Hot Rod again. His trailer is nowhere to be found, and he's even got the exposed engine again.
There's a fun little moment when the Quintesson ship flies by and Magnus just casually peers through Perceptor's lenses to get a better look at it.
Once on board the Quintesson ship, Katsu Don falls off of Cyclonus and is promptly immobilized by one of the Quintessons. The animation doesn't convey this very well, but he actually slips some sort of control band over Katsu Don's head, paralyzing him. The Quintesson demands that Perceptor surrender the emulator or else he will kill the Zamojin. Perceptor the geisha doll reluctantly agrees, removing the Autobot symbol that is his face. At this point, though, the doll is rendered inert and collapses to the ground. The first Quintesson is still ordering Perceptor to fix the isolator key, but his buddy grabs the immobilized doll and dismisses it as garbage, throwing it out of the ship where it falls back down to the planet and falls past Blurr.
The Quintessons are set to go. The universal emulator is plug-and-play; attaching it to their ship's console is apparently sufficient to enable it to mimic the ability of the damaged isolator key.
Blurr shouts some idle threats in the Quintessons' direction before one of them produces a gun (how do you operate a gun when you have tentacles?!) and cuts through the rope suspending Blurr. He falls into the molten pit, but he seems to be enjoying it. The sounds he makes are rather, hmm, provocative. "Hood in place, wheels in place, bumpers in place," he rattles off, despite being a flying car with NO WHEELS. (I don't care that Victor Caroli calls him "the fastest car on wheels" in a narration clip. You can clearly see the distinct lack of wheels as he launches into the Quintesson ship, making TIE Fighter sounds, and knocking the universal emulator out of the Quintesson's tentacles as he rockets past him.) Is it petty to mention that he switches to car mode but we don't hear him make the transformation sound effect?
"Your life is over, Autobot!" Cyclonus promises Blurr, training a gun on him and standing there for several seconds, giving Ultra Magnus time to pounce upon him from behind. How the hell did Magnus and Rodimus get on board the Quintesson ship? Do they turn into flying cars, too?
Rodimus frees Katsu Don, who goes on a rampage and screams, "Devils... DEVILS!" before he leaps out of the ship. Magnus, who has apprehended Cyclonus, leaps off after him. Rodimus orders Blurr to evacuate, and he does so, after snatching up the universal emulator. It's almost an afterthought that he grabs it, despite the damn thing being the whole point of the episode.
The Quintessons seem to think they have the upper hand. "There's nowhere to run, fools!" they promise the Autobots. "You'll be trapped in Quadrant X forever!" The ship departs, with Cyclonus flying off after them.
The emulator is returned to its rightful place, and once it is plugged in, Perceptor springs back to life. "Last time, they took the stars. What will they steal from us this time?" a worried Empress wonders. Perceptor informs the Empress that the Quintessons won't be taking anything this time—"they're about to learn the joy of giving!" This is the closest thing we get to an explanation, but it stands to reason that if Perceptor's personality was contained within the emulator, then he was able to somehow sabotage the Quintesson ship and manipulate the function of the isolator key.
With the quadrant lock open for good, the starlight returns to the planet and the Zamojins regain their telepathic abilities. The crystals within their foreheads all illuminate brightly, converging upon the Kodu Ri statue, which is likewise reactivated. The Autobots all stand there with their mouths wide open, dumbfounded. (This scene, perhaps more than any other, emphasizes the weird color models the Autobots have. The inside of Rodimus and Perceptor's mouths are black, but the inside of Ultra Magnus' mouth is red, and the inside of Blurr's mouth is blue.)
Perceptor surmises that this was the true reason the Quintessons were so intent upon sealing off the Zamojins from the rest of the galaxy. "In time," he estimates, "their capabilities will become as limitless as thought itself!" So, in addition to being made of indestructible, super-dense matter, the Zamojins with their telepathic technology are also going to be the braniacs of the universe. These guys are, like, the gods of the Transformers canon.
Perceptor suggests to Katsu Don that he continue Niko Don's space faring experiments, now that he has the knowledge and ability to do so. "You and Nijika will meet again," he promises, "out among the stars!" Suffice to say, Nijika doesn't appear in any future episodes after this one. Blurr appears in the next commercial bumper, though, still with absolutely no wheels in evidence. (No, I am not letting this one drop.)
We also never find out whether the Quintessons made good on their promise to let Galvatron take home a quadrant lock disc to decorate Chaar with. My guess is that they did not.
I can't call this a favorite episode. Some installments of the show exist to promote new toys, and some of them are really engrossing stories with meaningful character development, but this one is neither. It's just Perceptor playing dress-up as Kimono Barbie. There are some good moments (the idea of Blurr actually slowing down for once, in a moment of crisis, is an interesting facet to the character, and I love the bit with Magnus using Perceptor as a telescope) but other than that, it's just another badly-animated Akom episode with a meandering story and not much punch to it.
Zob (every year, like clockwork, customers come to the store on Valentine's Day and ask, "Where's the rest of your candy? Where are all the stuffed animals? Don't you have more cards?" Dude, it's three in the afternoon on February 14th. Do the math.)
Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats
Feb 15, 2017, 3:26:42 AM2/15/17
to
On Tuesday, February 14, 2017 at 8:37:04 PM UTC-8, Zobovor wrote:
>
> Also, this is a super weird story.
It feels half finished. Or like the wrote something much longer, and then it was chopped to fit the run time with nothing done to stitch the pieces together.
>
> Also, this is a super weird story.
The function of the emulator must have been of Quintesson devising, though, because they knew about it right away. This makes me wonder if other robots have symbols with special functions, or whether Perceptor is completely unique. (We know Skyfire doesn't have a universal emulator, at least.) I'm not sure why the Quintessons would install such a feature in a consumer product in the first place.
>
> The Zamojins, by the way, are another race of huge aliens who are approximately the height of Transformers. (Tiny humanoids like the ones from Nebulos or Earth seem to be the exception in the galaxy rather than the rule.) Around this time, Nijika saunters out and commends Katsu Don on his handiwork... in Perceptor's voice. I'm not really sure whether Perceptor's consciousness has been transferred to the doll, or if the doll is just borrowing Perceptor's speech synthesizer, but Katsu Don is surprised that she can talk, and she's surprised that he's surprised. What surprises me, personally, is that Perceptor was still speaking after the emulator was extracted (it's already out by the time Perceptor cries, "He's removing my insignia!")
> Katsu Don explains that this was when Nijika was damaged, losing her face
If someone can turn up some script notes that confirm this episode was all built around a bad visual pun, all will be forgiven.
banzait...@gmail.com
Feb 15, 2017, 10:25:38 PM2/15/17
to
Since your review ends with "Do the math", allow me....
> One of the Quintessons suggests that the Transformers have a one in 82.5 million chance of making it through alive. They do, of course... all five of them. Does that mean there was a one in 412.5 million chance of all five of them surviving? Stuff like this strains credibility.
Assuming Quintessons know basic probability theory, which is a safe assumption, then their calculation is correct at 1 in 82.5 million for all 5 transformers to make it through the disc. That means that the probability of EACH transformer making it through the disc independently is approximately 1 in 2.4 Million (5 root of 82.5, which basically means which number you have to multiple by itself 5 times to equal 82.5). Since there were five transformers that made it through the lock, the probability is thus: (1/2,400,000)5th power, or 82,500,000 as the Quintesson so accurately stated.
Alternatively, if it's possible that the quintesson mistakenly stated (remote, but entertained here due to your assumption) the probability of a single transformer making it through the warp independently was indeed 1 in 82,500,000. Then the probability of ALL 5 transformers making it through alive would be an outrageous 1 in 3,821,815,722,656,250. (that's 3.8 Quadrillion by the way).
For comparison, here are some other probabilities:
Winning powerball jackpot: 1 in 175,223,510
Struck by Lightning: 1 in 280,000
Dying in plane crash 1 in 20,000,000
Dying in Car 1 in 5,000
Liking G1 Pretenders 1 in 3,821,815,722,656,249 (estimated)
My apologies, but this episode is so terrible, I had to go off script to make this thread interesting.
-Banzaitron (Can someone please check my math, I'm getting old)
> One of the Quintessons suggests that the Transformers have a one in 82.5 million chance of making it through alive. They do, of course... all five of them. Does that mean there was a one in 412.5 million chance of all five of them surviving? Stuff like this strains credibility.
Alternatively, if it's possible that the quintesson mistakenly stated (remote, but entertained here due to your assumption) the probability of a single transformer making it through the warp independently was indeed 1 in 82,500,000. Then the probability of ALL 5 transformers making it through alive would be an outrageous 1 in 3,821,815,722,656,250. (that's 3.8 Quadrillion by the way).
For comparison, here are some other probabilities:
Winning powerball jackpot: 1 in 175,223,510
Struck by Lightning: 1 in 280,000
Dying in plane crash 1 in 20,000,000
Dying in Car 1 in 5,000
Liking G1 Pretenders 1 in 3,821,815,722,656,249 (estimated)
My apologies, but this episode is so terrible, I had to go off script to make this thread interesting.
-Banzaitron (Can someone please check my math, I'm getting old)
Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats
Feb 16, 2017, 4:31:16 AM2/16/17
to
On Tuesday, February 14, 2017 at 8:37:04 PM UTC-8, Zobovor wrote:
> "The Face of the Nijika" is episode #92 of the original Transformers series' 98-episode run, and first aired on November 20, 1986. It was written by Mary Skreanes and Steve Skeates, the only such Transformers episode to their names. Both have written for the comic book industry, and Mary Skreanes also produced a handful of G.I. Joe and Jem and the Holograms scripts.
Were their GI Joe and Jem scripts any better? This one feels like something bad happened to it.
>This is arguably Perceptor's starring episode, which is odd in and of itself, considering most of the spotlight stories for the 1985 toys were in the second season.
> Also, this is a super weird story.
>
> There are two interesting things about this scene. One, Sky Lynx suggests to the Autobots, "don your rocket packs!" which is consistent with the idea that the Autobots usually cannot fly on Earth unassisted, but not consistent with the way they've all been able to freely fly through space for most of the season (unless the script calls for them to be helpless, as in the beginning of "Five Faces of Darkness" part 3).
There are also no visible rocket packs. Which means that they can either be helpless or not in space, as the scripts require, with no animation changes. The invisible rocket packs are a thing of wonder.
> The other interesting thing is that when Sky Lynx switches from space shuttle mode to robot mode, all the Autobots come rocketing out of his mouth. I guess this makes sense (Sky Lynx's head does form the cabin of his shuttle mode, with the windows becoming his optic sensors) but it's still kind of weird.
> It almost gives the impression that the fight isn't really a big deal, and maybe the Autobots aren't at all worried. There's no sense of suspense.
> The Quintessons realize the best way to get rid of the interfering Transformers is to unlock the disk remotely and allow them all to fall into it. Perceptor, now in microscope mode, is examining the disk in question and observes that it acts as a seal, plugging up a warp in space. His discovery becomes moot when the Quintesson ship sails through the opening and every one of the Autobots is sucked in along with it.
> One of the Quintessons suggests that the Transformers have a one in 82.5 million chance of making it through alive. They do, of course... all five of them. Does that mean there was a one in 412.5 million chance of all five of them surviving? Stuff like this strains credibility.
> One of the Quintessons observes that Perceptor is with the group, though, and recognizes that he's equipped with a universal emulator, a component which, I presume, can mimic the function of other components.
Also, they know of the odd way Perceptor was made, with a universal emulator emulating... something.
> The citizens of planet Zamojin all look like they're from feudal Japan. "Behold! Fire in the sky!" proclaims one of them, pointing to the Perceptor-shaped meteorite that's falling to the ground.
There may be other forces at work, since such a low gravity would let the atmosphere escape.
> A blacksmith (whose name we will learn as Katsu Don) is the first to spot Perceptor and mounts his alien steed, Brutolo, who is sort of a cross between a furry lizard and a fish. They retrieve Perceptor, still stuck as a gigantic microscope, and drag him back to his camp. Elsewhere, the Autobots are recovering from their impromptu landing.
> Rodimus crashed into a tree, but he didn't even damage it. Ultra Magnus surmises that everything on the planet has a far more dense molecular structure than they're accustomed to. This is certainly an interesting story premise. This means that the Zamojin weapons and even the Zamojins themselves are tougher than Transformer metals.
> Back at his camp, Katsu Don is initiating a little bit of impromptu surgery on Perceptor after pulling some tools from the forge. "What in the name of Alpha Trion?!" he balks as the alien heads towards him with a couple of cutting implements and begins to extract Perceptor's Autobot symbol.
> It's not just a badge with a robot face on it, though—behind it is this pentagonal-shaped block of technology. It just happens to be the universal emulator that the Quintessons were talking about earlier. So many contrived coincidences. Perceptor fires off a distress call to the other Autobots. We don't quite know yet why this is a bad thing, exactly, but it's a suspenseful enough moment that we must now cut to commercial.
It's either a wildly improbable coincidence, or Zamojins have encountered Quintesson brand commercial robots, and have some kind of stories about them -- and not just any Quintesson brand commercial robots, but ones built like Perceptor.
I think Perceptor comes from an entirely different assembly line, and wasn't given life by Vector Sigma.
> the Autobot symbol itself undergoes a slight transformation as it becomes a new face for Nijika.
> "Forever is a Long Time Coming" establishes that the Autobot symbol was originally the "slave brand," essentially a merchandising logo that identified a robot as a Quintesson product. The function of the emulator must have been of Quintesson devising, though, because they knew about it right away. This makes me wonder if other robots have symbols with special functions, or whether Perceptor is completely unique. (We know Skyfire doesn't have a universal emulator, at least.) I'm not sure why the Quintessons would install such a feature in a consumer product in the first place.
I'm not willing to say that Perceptor is unique, just different from what has been presented.
> Outside, the Sharkticons are no match for Katsu Don. They arrive riding on flying skiffs, but Katsu Don kicks one squarely in the chest and gives the other a high-five right in the teeth with his other foot. He throws them both back on the skiff as it's automatically recalled to the Quintesson ship.
It might explain how the atmosphere stays in place, somehow.
> Around this time, Nijika saunters out and commends Katsu Don on his handiwork... in Perceptor's voice. I'm not really sure whether Perceptor's consciousness has been transferred to the doll, or if the doll is just borrowing Perceptor's speech synthesizer, but Katsu Don is surprised that she can talk, and she's surprised that he's surprised.
> What surprises me, personally, is that Perceptor was still speaking after the emulator was extracted (it's already out by the time Perceptor cries, "He's removing my insignia!")
> Or, at least, it would have initiated the space journey... if some five-faced meddlers hadn't interfered. It's like they were waiting for this species to develop space travel until they finally introduced themselves. They're like the Vulcans from Star Trek, only with tentacles.
We have Zamojins recognizing Autobot symbols and building their own technology that integrates with Quintesson technology (Nijika and the emulator). I think the truth here is that they had known the Quintessons for some time, and that the Quintessons then turned on them. The stories are simplifications.
> Rodimus and Magnus make it to Katsu Don's place and find Perceptor's body on the work bench, still in microscope mode. (When Ultra Magnus goes to pick up Perceptor, at first he's not present on the table at all, and then when Magnus bends down to lift him, suddenly Perceptor is there, but he's on the floor, not on the table.) They head towards Tozin to look for the missing emulator.
> How the hell did Magnus and Rodimus get on board the Quintesson ship? Do they turn into flying cars, too?
See, the low gravity is referenced twice in the episode, so it must be true.
> Perceptor surmises that this was the true reason the Quintessons were so intent upon sealing off the Zamojins from the rest of the galaxy. "In time," he estimates, "their capabilities will become as limitless as thought itself!" So, in addition to being made of indestructible, super-dense matter, the Zamojins with their telepathic technology are also going to be the braniacs of the universe. These guys are, like, the gods of the Transformers canon.
I'm thinking the Space Buddha is Quintesson technology. It was an experiment, it went wrong, so they tried to destroy it and then tuck it away with a quadrant lock.
Zobovor
Feb 16, 2017, 8:18:59 PM2/16/17
to
On Thursday, February 16, 2017 at 2:31:16 AM UTC-7, Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:
> Were their GI Joe and Jem scripts any better? This one feels like something
> bad happened to it.
I've only sifted through Jem once, and G.I. Joe maybe twice, so I don't know the shows forwards and backwards. Many of the episode titles associated with her name mean nothing to me. Perhaps most notably, she wrote "Iceberg Goes South," in which the Joe named Iceberg turns into a whale.
> Were their GI Joe and Jem scripts any better? This one feels like something
> bad happened to it.
> I find it a little odd that they know every Transformer, but it does help
> bolster my theory that there are only a few left. If Cybertron was covered in
> Transformers in this era, the Quintessons would have a hard time identifying
> individuals by name.
Or, maybe every Transformer emits a transponder signal, and the Quintessons were just reading that. (I'm not saying you're wrong. Just exploring the issues.)
> Perceptor appears to be built with a different technology than the rest of
> the Autobots -- he has a universal emulator which houses his personality. And
> Katsudon knows to cut that out.
> We know that Rodimus, Ultra Magnus, Blurr, and Cyclonus don't have universal
> emulators either.
> Perceptor has no mouth in microscope mode, so the part speaking might have
> been the emulator which continued talking after removal.
> We are getting the history from a single character talking, and he got it
> from his family. An oral tradition is likely to have changed the facts. It's
> not a omniscient narrator.
> We have Zamojins recognizing Autobot symbols and building their own
> technology that integrates with Quintesson technology (Nijika and the
> emulator). I think the truth here is that they had known the Quintessons for
> some time, and that the Quintessons then turned on them. The stories are
> simplifications.
Zob (witness Titans Return Blaster and his many USB ports!)
0 new messages