From kendrick@io.com Wed Oct 25 11:30:19 CDT 1995
Article: 24913 of alt.toys.transformers
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From: kendrick@io.com (Kendrick Kerwin Chua)
Newsgroups: alt.toys.transformers
Subject: TF Weekday 10/24 - The Killing Jar
Date: 25 Oct 1995 11:16:46 -0500
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TF Weekday Oct 24 1995 - The Killing Jar

The EI/AD: A Quintesson ship with a 'Mirage Effect' allowing it to
disguise itself as almost anything.

The plot: Disguising his ship as allied spacecrafts, a Quintesson
one-headed scientist and his Gatorcon stooge capture Ultra Magnus,
Cyclonus, Wreck-Gar, and Marissa Fairborne. He conducts a betrayal
behavior test on all of them except for Wreck-Gar, on w hom he tests
isolation behavior. As the prisoners learn their dilemma, the Quintesson
is about to perform experiments on Fairborne when Wreck-Gar foils his
submission beam. As Fairborne tries to free Magnus, the ship falls into an
electron storm. Magnus f rees everybody by shorting out the energon bars
with his own body. Magnus and Cyclonus fight over how to deal with the
situation, while the Gatorcon and Wreck-Gar fight for the heck of it. The
ship is dragged into the gravitational field of a black hole, where they
watch as a derelict ship is pulled down and destroyed. As everyone
scuffles over the use of an escape pod, it's launched and Magnus is
dragged out into space by the woosh of escaping air. Cyclonus rescues him
with his tractor beam, rationalizing that soldiers should die in battle
and not of spatial phenomenae. Speaking of which, the Quint ship's engines
fail and they are dragged through into a negative universe, where colors
and physics are reversed. Working together, they repair the engines and
go back through to their own universe, where rescuers from all factions
have arrived in response to the distress signal. Magnus and Cyclonus agree
that everyone should leave each other alone at an impasse until their next
encounter.

The characters: Are Magnus and Cyclonus intended to be counterparts?
Probably not, but it's nice that it turned out that way. They're both
loyal to a fault, but don't mind taking command when they have to. Their
ideologies are tested and sound, and they b oth relish a good fight,
although Magnus is less ready to admit this than Cyclonus. The Gatorcon
seems to be a anomaly among Quint slave; he's relatively intelligent and
pretty cooperative, even if he can't tell left from right. Wreck-Gar is
pretty useles s in this episode except for comic relief. I have to wonder,
do Wreck-Gar's lines lose anything in translation when they write the
Japanese dialogue, or do they do exclusively Japanese cultural references?
He seems to be quoting a lot of old 70's tunes, a nd isn't good for much
more than rescuing the human in distress. Speaking of which, Fairborne is
strong and indomitable, which isn't bad for a token female or token human
being. Watch for the brief appearance by Dashiell Fairborne, Marissa's
father. GIJoe fans know him better as Flint, Joe field commander.

The plot holes: Besides the silly portrayal of a black hole and 'the other
side,' the only real plot hole is the lack of resolution about what
species Wreck-Gar is. The Quintesson scientist marvels at Wreck-Gar's
unpredicatble behavior, even if he is an A utobot. Aren't the Junkions
Autobots by faction, and not by design? A lot of people like to imagine
that Junkions are an evolutionary offshoot of the Autobots, or at very
least were examples of parallel development, a la Australian animals
compared to the rest of the world. But the question remains; if the
Transformers as a whole were created by the Quintessons, so too were the
Junkions?

Moving pictures: Average animation made better by the fact that they had
to choose their colors carefully for the negative universe scene at the
end. The morph of Dashiell Fairborne into a Quintesson monster is nicely
handled, even though that fight scene with Marissa is a little choppy.
Speaking of fight scenes, count how many times they leave out Rodimus'
spoiler in Magnus' fight scene. Maybe the did what everybody else did that
year and just lost the part after they bought they toy. :) Watch Cyclonus'
tractor beam carefully; when Magnus is re-entering the ship the beam
appears to originate OUTSIDE the ship, if the overlapping escape hatch is
any indicator. Too bad that after they repair the engines, the Gatorcon
gets his arm back and Wreck-Gar seems to get his fingertip back as well.
Did they just need a temporary power boost or support beam or something?

The cuts: A few minor scenes out of the fights are cut, as well as a bit
of dialogue after they get to the negative universe. It really doesn't
hurt the plot all that much; this is a moral story more than a
story-story, which is a shame because they could have easily broadcast the
message about cooperation and detente with a good story to back it up.

Toys they should reissue: Anybody for a G2 Cyclonus in that funky green?
Seriously, maybe a Cyclonus with a more articulate head and legs would be
appropriate if the movie ever comes out again. Even better, maybe one with
a hinged canopy where we can stic k our decoy Galvatron figure. :)

Quotables:
"I can finish my own thoughts, Cyclonus."
"Perhaps the thought was not yours to begin with, Ultra Magnus."

KKC, big day to send of big boxes full of toys... Yes, I'm sending off
everybody's stuff today. Be patient, it's all a-comin'.

--
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