A journey through the JP Gen1 cartoon.

[Hursticon]

And Bruce Campbell (^O^)

OMG, 1AZRAEL1 is going to kill me for forgetting "The Boom Stick" - Well, Hara-kiri it is then...

[griffin]

Ep 14 - Explosion on Mars! Maximus is in Danger!
Ep 15 - Explosion on Mars! Scorponok Appears!

Mars is rigged with explosives so that Zarak can capture the energy released, and power up his new 'weapon'. The Autobots fail to prevent it, and the new weapon appears in the form of Scorponok.


Size consistency is a problem with Zarak/Scorponok. We have a whole planet (Planet Zarak) with the new Scorponok body filling the entire interior when it breaks away like an eggshell, but then when he arrives on Mars he's about the size of Fortress Maximus. And when Zarak is the head, he's huge (the size of a regular bot), but then shrinks when transforms back to Zarak. I guess odd size shifting isn't new to Transformers.

The larger bodies of the Headmasters are suddenly given a name - Transtectors. And everyone suddenly starts using it as if it was common knowledge.

Zarak has been quite successful as a leader, destroying 2 whole planets... 3 if you include his own Planet Zarak.

And does this mean all those Beastformers slaves were all killed in the destruction of the planet? Nobody cared about them.

Destruction of Mars has upset the balance of the (whole) Universe. One small insignificant planet is destablilising the entire universe???


Ep 16 - Return of the Immortal Emperor

Zarak attempts to draw the Autobots into a trap by hosting his own coronation as Decepticon Emperor, but Galvatron arrives and instead of finishing them off, he lets them leave so he can take back his leadership.

Introduction of Punch (Spacepunch in this series), as the Autobot doublespy.
Although, his first scene has him drawn as Decepticon and then Autobot while in the room with Zarak... I guess his cover would be blown.

Return of Galvatron... huge dramatic build up throughout the episode, but was spoilt by the title.

The Autobots wonder if the UFO are aliens... um, that just didn't make sense, as everyone are aliens to them, including the Humans.

Zarak is having a coronation... I was half hoping Galvatron would say 'coronation Zarak, this is bad comedy' and shoot him.

Nice to see all six of Soundwave/Soundblaster's cassettes in one shot again, and having Ravage and Laserbeak (Jaguar and Condor) speaking. When they all transformed and went into Soundblaster's chest, I was laughing at the thought of him falling over backwards from the sheer weight of them all landing in there at once... but the scene changed.

Again Fortress can't transform without the Master Sword being fully charged. At least it wasn't a problem in the US cartoon.

The one thing that does bug me most about this series is the amount of wrestling and close quarter combat that occurs. They have weapons... use them and defeat the enemy quickly, or even at all. But I guess the episodes would only be about 4 minutes long if that happened.

Daniel tries to contact the UFO with his keyboard (like the movie 'Close Encounters'), and later he has a cry like a little girl when the UFO turns out to be Galvatron.

[Bartrim]

The one thing that does bug me most about this series is the amount of wrestling and close quarter combat that occurs. They have weapons... use them and defeat the enemy quickly, or even at all. But I guess the episodes would only be about 4 minutes long if that happened.

That totally annoyed me too!!! It's almost as bad as energon when Megatron would just shoot and shoot and shoot Optimus and he would just stand there and talk about teamwork.

[GoktimusPrime]

The one thing that does bug me most about this series is the amount of wrestling and close quarter combat that occurs. They have weapons... use them and defeat the enemy quickly, or even at all. But I guess the episodes would only be about 4 minutes long if that happened.

From a story-telling POV they want to have 'romantic' and interpersonal melee fighting - but you're right, it's something that's nearly impossible in a situation where you have automatic firearms. I think they went with the whole "Bushido honour" thing where mortal enemies put aside the ability to shoot each other and go melee... which is complete bollocks and even the Samurai never adhered to that (as mentioned in a previous post, even samurai happily used imported Spanish/Portuguese guns until they were outrightly banned (conveniently during a 250 year period of peace - as soon as war came back, so did guns )

It's much better when story writers try to create a reason as to why opponents can't shoot - something as simple as either losing their guns or the enemy has somehow managed to come in close enough where shooting no longer becomes viable. e.g. in Optimus Prime vs. Megatron in TF:TM, Megatron begins by crash-tackling Prime, thus he drops his rifle, and Megatron shoots at an unarmed Prime with his fusion cannon, then Prime tackles him into a wall which makes Megatron lose his cannon, thus the two of them go into melee fighting. But of course, as soon as Prime is able he picks up his rifle again ("Finish him off Prime!") - and likewise the moment Megatron spies a gun he attempts to stall Prime until he can grab it (thankfully Hot Rod provided him with the opportunity in the end).

It's just lazy writing... Kaneda's thinking that he wants to have them fighting close quarter, which is fine, but can't be bothered writing in a semi-plausible explanation for why they would bother to do so (which is a lot easier to do with Transformers since they can actually take a shot or two, allowing them to get close).

Destruction of Mars has upset the balance of the (whole) Universe. One small insignificant planet is destablilising the entire universe???

Butterfly effect? Or maybe Mars was a load-bearing planet.

[Hursticon]

Butterfly effect? Or maybe Mars was a load-bearing planet.

Ha! LOL!
That's Good!

[griffin]

Ep 17 - SOS from Planet Sandra

A distress call from a planet with a dying race, is received by both Decepticons and Autobots. As the Autobots try to send them energon/energy, the Decepticons try to stop them, claiming all energy in the universe belongs to them, and the AUtobots shouldn't be giving it away freely.

The Decepticons show interest in the distress call at first, which is odd. Fortunately Galvatron puts them in their place and reminds them that it has nothing to do with them (because they don't care about other people's problems).

I think the theme of this episode was to highlight the plight of our own planet's wasting of resources, as it is claimed that Planet Sandra's entire Planetary System (it's mistakenly called a 'Solar System', which only refers to our Planetary system, due to our star being called Sol in Latin)

A big deal is made for this being Daniel's first space voyage. It has to be another mis-translation, as Daniel has been half way around the galaxy already.

Ultra Magnus tips off the Decepticons of their 'plan B', by stopping the battle and unloading the energon, when all they had to do was keep fighting off the Decepticons on Earth, and the Athenia Autobots would have delivered their cargo without interference.

Arcee's role in this episode -the secretary, running messages around the office.

[griffin]

Ep 18 - Daniel Faces his Biggest Crisis Ever

As the recent destruction of Mars has caused a disruption in the Space Bridge system, Spike wants to negotiate with Galvatron to co-operatively build a new energy source for both sides to use. But naturally, the Decepticons only use the negotiations to distract the Autobots while they continue their plans of universal conquest.


Introduction of Apeface and Snapdragon.

Punch is again a key character in this episode, alerting the Autobots to important things, including the fake Galvatron at the negotiations.

Spike wants to negotiate with Galvatron... this is a failure of the writer, as this character would know best how Galvatron and the Decepticons can't be trusted, even if it is in their own best interest.

The plan must be really insane if Galvatron says the Autobots are crazy for suggesting it.

The Decepticons plan to use it as opportunity to destroy the Autobots... gee, who couldn't have seen that coming? Oh wait, Spike didn't.

Galvatron wants to keep Daniel? I know it was just a stalling tactic, but makes him sound a bit too much of perverted, sadistic Decepticon leader.


Ep 19 - Fight to the Death on Planet Beehive

As the Destrons/Decepticons head off to plunder the Universe, they first come across a planet called 'Beehive'. The Beehive people fight off both Decepticons and Autobots, until Chromedome can convince them that they are there to help.


Meant to follow on from the previous episode, but can stand alone.

The planet looks like a giant beehive, and the 'humans' inhabiting it have giant bug eyes (or goggles). They remind me of Buzz-Off from MOTU.

When they die, they go grey-ish like Transformers do. I guess it's the animators way of making sure we don't think he's just taking a nap...

For some reason, Zarak is inside the 'helmet' of Scorponok's scorpion mode (he is usually only attached in robot mode) when the Decepticons depart, but later when he transforms to robot mode, he was inside as Zarak. And when the other Decepticons departed while he was in the scorpion helmet, he's like 10 times their size, despite being a tenth of their size when detatched as Zarak.

The first lot of the Beehive people know that the Autobots are friendly, but everyone else seems to think that all TFs are there to plunder their energy stocks.

On a whole new alien world, the first person Chromedome manages to run into, is the one person (child) he was looking for.

The Autobot Headmasters detach the main (big) gun from Battleship Maximus, and fire it at the Decepticons with explosive results, but without any recoil.

[Hursticon]

Ep 18 - Daniel Faces his Biggest Crisis Ever

Ep 19 - Fight to the Death on Planet Beehive

It's a wonderful series isn't it?

I'm more or less on par with you Griff in watching the episodes and I've got to say that I'm really starting to enjoy the absolutely Zany plots, settings and interactions.
I don't know why though because its flawed at almost every turn but it has a sort of charm to it.

I certainly hope the following Japanese series are a little better though.

[griffin]

Yeah, it's the wackyness that keeps me interested to see what madness happens next.

[GoktimusPrime]

I think the Beehive ep is interesting in that it has casualties - and not just that, but then Chromedome had to find that deceased Beehive dude's son to inform him that his father had been killed in action and we see his son grieving for his father. Yeah I know the fact that the way Chromedome found Buzz-Off's son was an incredible fluke, but putting that aside I thought it was a very powerfully emotional moment. It delivers the message that this is a war and that people sadly do die and leave loved ones behind to mourn for them.