A great episode.
I recognised some of the holo-busts in the Dojo as Jazz, Devcon, Dai Atlas and Springer. I didn't recognise the others but I've read fan speculations that they're Sky Garry, Grandus and Heavy Load.
"Tigatron Stadium" was a really neat Beast Wars homage - the font was also done in orange, the same colour as the Tigatron prototype. Could be coincidental though, but the optimist in me would like to believe it's intentional.
Prowl's back story was great. Yoketron was a cool character and it was neat to hear George Takei voicing him! Gave me a personal buzz as I met George Takei at Sydney SupaNova in 2004 wearing an Optimus Prime costume. At the time George knew nothing about Transformers but asked me to explain it to him. He's such a nice and genuine guy and now he's actually voiced a Transformer!! Aaah, so awesome.
And the basic story of Prowl, Jazz, Yoketron and Cyber Ninjutsu in this story was well done IMO. I've personally cringed at all prior portrayals of "martial arts" in this show - being just so far removed from anything resembling martial arts in reality... while the actual physical aspects are still unrealistic (although amped up to a more fantastic level making it easier to suspend disbelief), I found the core philosophy of Cyber Ninjutsu here to be more in-line with reality.
e.g.:
+ Starting with nothing (i.e.: starting at the beginning with the bare basics)
+ The individual being more important than weaponry - reminds me of what goes through my mind when people ask "What's the best style of martial art?" - the answer differs for each individual. At the end it's more about finding a teacher/school/style that works for you as an individual. If there was one school that was fundamentally superior to all others, then it would have wiped out every other school centuries ago and all other styles would be extinct. Of course, this only applies to schools/styles created before the advent of sub-machine guns, since then martial arts evolution has hit a brick wall (since it's not really used in warfare anymore, unless you can ignore laws of reality and fight like this).
+ The whole Zen-Buddhist aspect of letting go of emotional attachment as it's the path to the Dark Side.
They've made Prowl and Jazz into Jedi with Lockdown as a Sith - that's COOL!
There is no emotion, there is peace.
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
There is no passion, there is serenity.
There is no chaos, there is harmony.
There is no death, there is the Force.
- Jedi Code
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
- Sith Code
Although both Prowl has accepted additional modifications like Lockdown, unlike Lockdown he doesn't allow himself to become emotionally attached to his mods and thus consumed by greed (as is what turns Jedi to Sith, e.g.: Anakin Skywalker --> Darth Vader).
I concur. This series has more of a continuous story arc and less stand-alone episodes, which is like Beast Wars/Machines. The depth and complexity of the stories is also improving a lot - we can see the writers shifting toward making an appeal toward adults, which was my main gripe with Season 1 and parts of Season 2. There's still plenty of transforming robot action to keep kids entertained too. And as I keep saying, kids aren't stupid. It's not as if they can't appreciate a good story. As Michael McConnohie said, that was one of the strengths of Transformers G1 over a lot of other cartoons around the time - it didn't talk down to children as much (McConnohie cited "The God Gambit" as one of his favourite eps in terms of being a very deep and meaningful story from the G1 cartoon).Originally Posted by Sky Shadow
+1
Nice idea - hadn't thought of that!
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P.S.: The possible meaning of Yoketron:
In Japanese the word "Yoke" (除け) can mean to 'guard' (e.g. どろ除け = "mud guard," what we call a mudflap on vehicles). A charm that is meant to defend someone against evil spirits is called a "Akuma-yoke" (悪魔除け). There is another meaning for "yoke" (避け) which is "to withdraw" or "to dodge", but I reckon it's the former. Took me a while to think of it as a lot of the voice actors were mispronouncing it as "Yokitron" - the correct pronunciation is said like, "Yo-Keh-Tron."
There's also a similar Kanji (余) that is also pronounced as "yo" but in Cantonese is "Yee," the surname of Ben Yee. The only difference being the absence of the left radical. The meaning is different though - in this case it means "more than." However this Kanji isn't used in conjunction with "-ke" so you can't make the word "Yoke" out of it (instead it is proceeded by "-ri" becoming "yori").
Make of that what you will.
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