From kendrick@io.com Fri Oct 27 08:51:50 CDT 1995
Article: 24997 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 10/27 - Forever is a Long Time Coming
Date: 27 Oct 1995 08:51:29 -0500
Organization: Illuminati Online
Lines: 125
Message-ID: <46qo51$kmp@bermuda.io.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: bermuda.io.com
Status: O
X-Status:

TF Weekday Oct 27 1995 - Forever is a Long Time Coming

Hazards of continuity; when you do an episode as good as this one, you
scare away people who could become new fans. This episode is enjoyable IF
you paid attention to the old episodes. I'm willing to bet that some
people were alienated by references and story elements that just don't
make sense out of context.

The EI/AD: The Quintesson fell off the toilet and hit his heads...
And when he came to, he drew this: Oh no, it's another time machine!

The plot: In space investigating temporal energies coming from a weird
asteroid, Perceptor and a bunch of Autobots are attacked by Sharkticons.
Perceptor lands to watch a Quintesson scientist retrieve something out of
11 million years ago with his time machine. As reinforcements arrive,
Perceptor is shot down and the Quint is raving about not leaving the
window open as his troops grab him and escape the asteroid. Blurr,
Blaster, Rewind, Ramhorn, and Wreck-Gar fly into the window by accident,
and a robot named A3 materializes in the present time. While Blaster and
the crew help out a bunch of odd guerilla rebels who all wear Autobot
symbols, A3 accuses Rodimus and the others of being Quint stooges.
Meanwhile, the Quint scientist is warning his commander about the
long-term deleterious effects of leaving the window open; in short, it
destroys the past by colliding it with space, destroying the universe. No
big deal. While the Quints mount an assault to blow away the window, time
falls apart around them; Superion is duplicated, A3 looks like
Alpha-Trion, and Pipes works on reviving Perceptor to get an answer to
where the missing Autobots are. In the past, Blaster and the others help
Beta and her rebels knock over a bunch of Guardians, only to be
strong-armed into a no-win situation. The Quints use holo-technology to
communicate with Rodimus in the present, giving him instructions as to how
to close the window and save the universe. But Rodimus delays, putting the
safety of his men first. A3 volunteers to go back in time and retrieve
them, after realizing that this is his hopeful future. He goes back and
pulls out his Coda Thingamajig, defeating the Guardians and sending the
displaced Autobots home. As everybody takes cover, the window explodes,
and the Autobots ponder their past and the young robot who will become the
'father of the Autobots.'

The characters: Beta is the first female Autobot who is distinctly female
without being stereotypically feminine. Ok, she has a slim waist and red
lips, but she's not particularly svelte or curved the way Arcee is. And
she's green, for crying out loud, and has those hooded, sunken eyes that
you normally only see on a Seeker-Skyraider's face. Too bad they pull a
GIJoe and give her only a crossbow rather than an honest-to-Primus gun.
Ramhorn talks! Yes, we finally get intelligent, thinking primitive tapes
in this episode. Too bad they only do this with the Autobot tapes, leaving
the Cons (including Slugfest and Overkill in a later episode) mute and
grunting. Speaking of which, Ram and Rewind seem to have access to
Blaster's sensory apparatus while transformed in tape mode. They
participate in conversations from inside Blaster's chest, which is a nice
science-fiction touch to the story. The exchange between A3 and Superion
is cool to listen to, even if it is a little confused (who was it that had
to live to that the other would be born? I think they get it backwards at
some point). Do they get their Quintesson heirarchy messed up? Sure, the
one-faced big brain Quintesson is billed as the Quintesson Leader in the
movie, but for most of the post-movie episodes we see a five-facer taking
charge. Watch closely when they get the leader and the scientist messed
up, the former talking with the latter's voice. There's Pipes acting like
a medic again. And it's the attack of the useless characters again, as
Wreck-Gar and Blurr appear for snappy one-liners and not much else.

The plot holes: It's the return of the flying Autobots! Blaster, Blurr,
Perceptor and Wreck-Gar fly out to the asteroid without the assistance of
a ship or jetpacks or helium balloons or what not. Maybe it would have
looked cooler for them to be floating around on personal anti-grav disks
or something. Also, we see lots of revolting Autobots in the past. Where
are the revolting Decepticons? Weren't they as enthusiastic to get in on
the fight as the Autobots? These two plot holes can be attributed to the
Japanese input on the series, if my info about this being a simultaneous
US/Japanese release is correct; Autobots fly all the time in Japan (ref
Headmasters, Masterforce and Victory) and the Decepticons have another
home planet entirely. Oh yeah... Why does a Quintesson need a chair? It's
got no feet to put up and no butt to sit down. Oh yeah, a few
inconsistencies with 'War Dawn' too. Here, the Guardian robots are the
enforcers of the Quintessons' law, while in War Dawn they're Autobot
peacekeepers. Did the Guardians all revolt as well, or do they just
happen to serve whoever's in charge? If the original revolt against the
Quints was 11 million years ago, and Optimus Prime was created 9 million
years ago, does that mean there was 2 million years of peace? Orion Pax
says that the Decepticons are 'Some new kind o' robot that can fly,'
implying that there hasn't been conflict with them before since they're new.

Moving pictures: Not really amazing animation, but it suffices. The rings
of leaking time energy from the window are seriously overdone, and the
worst animation is saved for the examples of time screwing up. A race on
Earth where Jazz and Wheelie are participating is cheap and
unimaginiative, and a segment where Marissa Fairborne devolves back into
an infant is poorly animated. They also can't seem to decide what the time
window looks like from the target era; At one point it's just a tiny
triangle hanging in the air, but when Blurr and co. fly through it seems
to srpout a control panel and an asteroid to support it. Watch the crowd
of suffering Autobot rebels carefully... Are those children among the
taller robots, or is it just me? Looks like we've got that silly Lithone
disease known as aging on Cybertron. Watch the Quintesson slave driver in
the past segments carefully. At one point near the end, the face which is
facing away from his audience talks, rather than his front-facing face.
Face face face face.

The cuts: I think the bit where the displaced Autobots actually FLY
through the time window is cut. Thankfully, Sci-Fi had their head on
straight and cut the filler at the end, the bio and specs of the
Predacons. If they're gonna cut anything, they might as well cut out the
extra recycled padding that Sunbow put in to make the episodes longer.

Toys they should reissue: Anybody ready for Twincast (Blaster a la Japan)
and the Cassette-robo? I'm ready for them to bring back Eject, Rewind,
Ramhorn, Steeljaw, Raindance and Grandslam. The Dinosaur cassettes that
never made it to America would be a nice touch too. These toys occupy a
special place for me because they really WERE robots in disguise, even if
they were toys. They were toys that pretended not to be, which was
perfect for your brilliant and bored schoolkid environment. I wonder how
popular Reflector would have been if he were a regular release, rather
than a limited edition mail-order offer.

Quotables:
"You understand him, Pipes?"
"Nuts and bolts I understand. Theoretical physics? Eh..."

KKC, it's paycheck day! Pay for rent? Nah. Pay for UK Comics!
--
Kendrick Kerwin Chua - "London? You put the Eiffel Tower back... in London?!"
kendrick@io.com - WTB: 1980s Transformers, US and Japanese, and GIJoe figures
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