TFA Season 3 episode 6 - Five Servos of Doom

[SMHFConvoy]

Cool and they made Prowl's new look permanent Hope Sentinel's around a bit longer... He needs to meet up with Blackarachnia!

[GoktimusPrime]

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).

so far, this is the best season of a cartoon since Beast Wars.

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).

hmmm, I may have to get Samurai Prowl now, GG Hasbro, GG.

+1

Hope Sentinel's around a bit longer... He needs to meet up with Blackarachnia!

Nice idea - hadn't thought of that!

-----

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.

[kup]

A great episode!

I am glad to see that this season is not going back to the old tedious pattern of before and that so far we are getting fairly decent episodes in a row instead of the opposite as in previous seasons.

If this continues for the rest of the season I would also say that this would be the best Transformers season since Beast Wars Season 2 and ranking high up there too. If the previous seasons had been like this instead of so 'meh', this would definitely would have been one of the greatest TF TV series ever made.

Sentinel still suffers a little too much of the 'office jerk' stereotype cliche but they managed to balance it all out with a well told story. This episodes felt much more balanced just like a BW episode in which there are plenty of kiddy and humor elements but it doesn't overwhelm or take focus away from the main story and neither does it make you cringe to the point of turning it off (like Sari and Human villain episodes in previous seasons).

[MV75]

Funny you mention bw, this season dwarves bw in every way. The first 2 seasons seemed to be on par with bw as they both shared single story episodes on single characters. BUT, animated also revisted characters through out instead of forgetting them and moving to the next.

This is THE reset of the series that will be remembered as we remember g1. And ending at season 3, they arn't following the g1 mistake of going too long past the used by.

[kup]

Funny you mention bw, this season dwarves bw in every way. The first 2 seasons seemed to be on par with bw as they both shared single story episodes on single characters. BUT, animated also revisted characters through out instead of forgetting them and moving to the next.

This is THE reset of the series that will be remembered as we remember g1. And ending at season 3, they arn't following the g1 mistake of going too long past the used by.

That's a bold statement given the Season just barely begun. It is starting great but I wouldn't ditch Beast War's mostly high quality run just for a strong Animated third season start.

[Sky Shadow]

The first 2 seasons seemed to be on par with bw as they both shared single story episodes on single characters. BUT, animated also revisted characters through out instead of forgetting them and moving to the next.

That's... not what Beast Wars was about at all. There were only twenty-four characters in Beast Wars from the beginning to the end, and that includes minor cameos like Cicadacon, Sea Clamp and Ram Horn. There were fifty-two episodes of Beast Wars. For Beast Wars to have had single story episodes on single characters and then forget them and move onto the next, would require at least twenty-eight episodes to be nothing but twenty-three minutes of dead air. Beast Wars was the most coherently layered and continuity-faithful series that Transformers ever had.

This is THE reset of the series that will be remembered as we remember g1. And ending at season 3, they arn't following the g1 mistake of going too long past the used by.

Animated is definitely better than the G1 cartoon - after the pilot 'movie', TFA had some weak episodes in the first season, but since then it's been all class.

[GoktimusPrime]

Funny you mention bw, this season dwarves bw in every way. The first 2 seasons seemed to be on par with bw as they both shared single story episodes on single characters. BUT, animated also revisted characters through out instead of forgetting them and moving to the next.

When did Beast Wars "forget" about characters and move onto the next? That happened a lot in G1 but I don't remember that happening in BW. A lot of characters died in BW at Hasbro's behest.

I'd say Animated Season 3 - thus far - comes close to BW but I don't think it supercedes it. It doesn't yet have the same epic scale that we got from Beast Wars. But as kup said, it's still early days. Also, as good as this season is, it doesn't change how campy Season 1 and parts of Season 2 were (IMHO). To me, Animated pretty much sucked for most of Season 1 (until Megatron returned), was pretty much hit and miss in Season 2, and Season 3 is mostly really good. But with Beast Wars, I pretty much love that entire series. Not a big fan of "The Low Road" but most other people seem to like that ep.

Also, remember that Animated is becoming successful in a time where Transformers is already tremendously popular. As Hasbro's data presented at Toy Fair showed, Transformers sales skyrocketed with the 2007 movie. Beast Wars on the other hand became successful at a time when Transformers was nearly dead and it breathed new life into Transformers and brought it back.

And ending at season 3, they arn't following the g1 mistake of going too long past the used by.

I think the problems with G1 were:
+ A big shift toward fantasy (scifi) alt modes as opposed to realistic ones.
+ The introduction of Action Masters who dominated the line.

After all that, they then made the mistake of "going too long past used by" was with G2.

[Sky Shadow]

I think the problems with G1 were:
+ A big shift toward fantasy (scifi) alt modes as opposed to realistic ones.
+ The introduction of Action Masters who dominated the line.

I don't think it was just Action Masters, but one problem with the last two years of US Transformers toys was that unlike the variety of all the the previous years, all that US fans could buy in 1989-90 were Pretenders, Micromasters and Action Masters. Which wasn't a good selling technique for any fans who have a knee-jerk aversion to those gimmicks. (Personally I love those things though.) Plus the packaging was ugly for a while there - when I first saw the new 1989 Micromaster and Pretender packaging, I thought they were knockoffs. Add that to a lack of a cartoon (good or bad) and the fact that the original fans were growing up and it's no wonder that sales took a hit. Sadly, the Marvel comic was at its best during that period and killed off in its prime.

(And I think MV75 was meaning to imply that the G1 cartoon went past its 'use by' date, not the toyline.)

[MV75]

(And I think MV75 was meaning to imply that the G1 cartoon went past its 'use by' date, not the toyline.)

Yes, the cartoon. G1 should have ended at the movie. I thought that was the current topic flow.....

I won't bother Debating Goktimus as he's wearing his bw rose tinted glasses. I'm new to both cartoons so I can see the similarities and differences in the here and now.

Also, I think they did jump the gun on the jet twins by releasing the toy early. If I had seen them in the cartoon before the toys, I would have gotten the toy for sure as their characters are pretty good.

[kup]

(And I think MV75 was meaning to imply that the G1 cartoon went past its 'use by' date, not the toyline.)

I don't think it was due to a 'passed use by date' factor. More of an ill thought out change of direction.

- Too much Sci-Fi
- Too much Daniel
- Too much Wheelie
- Too much lame characters in general
- Bad execution of villain in most cases (mad Galvatron)
- Super retarded Grimlock with an apron.