From kendrick@io.com Fri Sep 29 08:30:50 CDT 1995
Article: 23618 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 9/29 - Traitor
Date: 29 Sep 1995 08:30:36 -0500
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TF Weekday Sept 29 1995 - Traitor

The EI/AD: Treasure Rocks(tm), there's a sparkling treasure inside. No.
Actually, there are a bunch of chemical batteries around called
electro-cells which could potentially blow up and kill us all. Humans
built 'em, Megatron wants them for himself, Prime wants to return them.
That's your EvilInvention/AlienDevice for the day.

The plot: Megatron breaks into the National Energy Research Whatsit
Facility and steals the electro-cells, being careful not to jostle them
around too much. In the opening bit of pointless combat, Prime attacks
hoping to get the cells back to the humans, but Mirage ends up getting
hurt and the cells nearly explode, forcing Prime into a retreat for a
change. Meanwhile, Cliffjumper is making noises about how Mirage
patrolled the river bed just yesterday, accusing him of nothing less than
stool pigeonry. A plan Mirage hatches to get the Decepticons in-fighting
backfires when he's hit by a Shrapnel grenade, inspiring Bombshell to do
his cerebro-shell business with him. Mirage leads Prime and co. into a
trap, but Ratchet finds the cerebro-shell, exonerating him. Prime corners
Megatron in his own facility, and Megatron decides to blow up the cells
rather than suffer the indignity of having them taken from him.

The characters: This is, of course, a Mirage episode, hands down. They
didn't do too many episodes that didn't focus on a group of Autobots or
just Bumblebee in particular, so that makes this unique on its own. More
tension between Starscream and Megatron as the former jockeys for action
while the latter stresses caution. Two guesses who's right in the end.
And the Insecticons are given a little more fleshing out, with their
motivations and their mercenary status clearly pointed out by Megatron's
bribery, and their reaction when they believe that their bribe has been
stolen. Cliffjumper seems just a tad too paranoid tho... I think it was
Malin Huffman who compared him to Scrappy Doo. He's supposed to be
impulsive, not a witch-hunter. Still, his funny reaction to the whole
mess at the end balances it out.

The plot holes: One hole comes from a messy Sci-Fi cut, more on that
later. Other than that, very few problems with the story except that
Ratchet seems to remove Bombshell's cerebro-shell a bit too easily. What,
is it held in with chewing gum or something? The electro-cells are
meaningless techno-toys, of course... No explanation is given about why
they would destroy the earth if they blew up, or what this damn chain
reaction they keep talking about is supposed to entail.

Moving pictures: Viva Toei, long live panning backgrounds and close up
faces. There are some amazing background scrolling scenes, especially
that first one where the 'camera' rotates around Starscream's and
Megatron's argument and the riverbed just swooshes by around them... It
also has the added bonus of giving us a brief side view of the two
rivals. Anybody else notice that Starscream has to look up at Megatron
while he's criticizing him? Bit o' dramatic irony there. Also, Prime's
trailer never disappears... There are several scenes where the damn thing
is just rolling along without anything to tow it. Makes more sense to me;
why stuff it in subspace, especially if it's got an artilley platform on
it? The only problems with the episode are usual quirks of Japanese
animation... In particular, static faces with only mouths for moving
parts and a lot of recycled footage. The shot of Starscream about to blow
Cliffjumper away near the base is used three times.
   A few sound problems keep this episode from being perfect in other
regards. They forget to process Shrapnel's voice in one scene. They leave
out a ton of gunfire sound effects and explosions, and a few yells and
screams are timed badly.

The cuts: They cut the whole scene where Mirage rips the Decepticon
symbol off of Skywarp's wing! Granted, this makes the moment when he
opens up his hand a lot more dramamtic, but it is a rather gaping hole in
the exposition. A few other minor cuts into and out of the commercial
breaks shave off those extra two minutes they need for Nerf
commercials... But this one cut really burns me up. Also, there's a few
little cuts at the end that make Megatron's solution to his problem make
a bit less sense. Why is he blowing it up, when he could easily have
blown up Prime instead?

Toys they should reissue: Maybe it's time for a higher-price range Mirage
toy, now that the Gobot is out and selling reasonably well. I certainly
wouldn't mind a new Ratchet toy, especially if it comes with a repair bay
playset. Perhaps that's something that's missing from the TF line as a
whole; other than that STARS nonsense, TFs never really had good scale
bases or playsets. And the city guys don't coun't.

Quotables:
"Move over... I think I got a hole in my head that needs repairing too!"

KKC, ever notice that Bombshell looks like Gigantor? He and Needlenose
have helmets which seem to be based on medieval European helmets of
heraldry, rather than the futuristic pilot masks we're used to seeing.
Wonder if there's a good reason for that...

KKC, wonders how many of you actually KNOW who Needlenose is... o O
--
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?"
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