From kendrick@io.com Wed Oct 4 13:16:16 CDT 1995 Article: 23943 of alt.toys.transformers Path: news.io.com!io.com!not-for-mail From: kendrick@io.com (Kendrick Kerwin Chua) Newsgroups: alt.toys.transformers Subject: TF Weekday 10/4 - Child's Play Date: 4 Oct 1995 10:11:52 -0500 Organization: Illuminati Online Lines: 91 Message-ID: <44u87o$45e@bermuda.io.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: bermuda.io.com Status: RO X-Status: TF Weekday Oct 4 1995 - Child's Play The EI/AD: The space bridge pops up again... This time in the middle of a baseball stadium. Funny, those damn space-time continuum anomalies... The plot: In a big fight over control of the space bridge, five Autobots and four Decepticons are transported away to Primus-knows-where. Damage during the fight makes the space bridge blow up; the remaining Autobots head back to base where they abjectly fail to locate anybody. Prime, Inferno, Bumblebee, Perceptor, Smokescreen, Starscream, Thrust, Soundwave, and Ravage wake up to find themselves in a world in miniature. It's actually the bedroom of a small child, who relative to them is about, oh, say, 700 feet tall. Fighting over the energon cubes that came with them over the bridge, the TFs completely fail to relate to this huge world, and end up tied down in a laboratory, examined by the giant organic creatures. The boy rescues the Autobots, but the Decepticons are able to free themselves. Perceptor hatches a plan to use the cubes to create a one-shot transport beam, but the Decepticons blackmail them into letting them use it by pointing several guns at Bumblebee. But the boy saves the Autobots by allowing them to modify his toy rocket, into which they fit easily and are able to fly home in. The characters: Perceptor shines in this one... He's starting to sound more like the techno-babbling absent-minded scientist he's supposed to be, and the character we're familiar with from the movie. Bumblebee is ever-present and ever-annoyingly lovable; he takes down Starscream with one jump and throws Ravage in a comical scene in the sewers. Ravage seems to act like more of an upstanding Decepticon than usual, never hesitating to jump to the assistance of the others (and subsequently getting smashed or captured or tangled as a result. :) Starscream is his usual scheming self, although he might have come off as a bit more brute-force than usual. And of course, the gigantic boy is whiny and annoying, just exactly what the marketing execs think we all acted like at that age. The plot holes: Besides the fact that organic creatures of that scale are nearly impossible, wouldn't the relative gravity of such a world make it near impossible for the TFs to move around in? The idea of the space bridge popping up in a stadium is funny but contrived, as is the idea that the TFs inherently have some knowledge of sporting events... Where's Eject when you need his character, anyway? The end is contrived too, with everybody being able to get home safely with just "a few modifications to the propulsion core" of the toy rocket. None of this detracts from the fact that the episode is STILL a lot of fun. Just goes to show a few seams showing can't kill a good story. Moving pictures: On and off bad and good. The first few scenes seem to be "overexposed" in a photographic sense, although that could just have been my lousy recording. Animation starts off nice but ends up sloppy... On one hand you have a very anime-ish scene where Brawn tosses Soundwave high into the air. On the other hand you have the Autobots climbing into the ship and having their legs disappear with no visible background overlap to explain this, or the half-a-cat that's sitting on the cockpit. Occasionally the action just freezes, as in the swirling sewer whirlpool that mysteriously stops swirling, or how Ravage just hangs in mid-air when Starscream throws him off. Starscream is miscolored about six times, five as Skywarp, once as Thundercracker. And there's a funny scene in flight over the planet of the Biggs where everybody is flying, and Ravage is shown galloping along as if he were on the ground, even though he is also flying. The cuts: I can't tell, but a few scenes from the opener seem to have been omitted for the sake of getting everybody to that planet quicker. Also, a scene showing WHY the space bridge blew up is probably missing too. Toys they should reissue: Why wasn't this a G2 episode? You had Prime, Bumblebee, Inferno, and Starscream. Certainly it would have been a proper marketing thing to do, even if the episode was cooked up in a "What if TF toys actually moved and talked?" discussion. In any case, we need Perceptor back... Bring back some of those Microman guys. Percy would look good in a laboratory grade black and chrome. Quotables: "As general manager of this stadium, I resepctfully request that you allow us to play ball!" "You're not going to believe this..." (said in the same voice used during the episode "Kremzeek" for 'Here comes that sinking feeling...' :) "You think a little piece of string is going to stop me?" *TOING*whirrCLUNK "Don't talk about it, Perceptor, just do it!" KKC, am I infallible, or do none of you feel like examining these episodes in as great detail as I do? Certainly you must disagree with or have a problem with SOMETHING I put in these reviews. :) They are intended to be discussion fuel, after all... -- kendrick@io.com - Kendrick Kerwin Chua - WTB: 80s Transformers and GIJoe toys "What would you have me do with Washington,Destro? Pepper it with spitballs?" Necronomcon FAQ home page at http://www.io.com/~kendrick/necronomicon or anon FTP at io.com:/pub/usr/kendrick -Personal home at http://www.io.com/~kendrick