From kendrick@io.com Mon Oct 16 10:13:02 CDT 1995
Article: 24492 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 10/16 - War Dawn
Date: 16 Oct 1995 10:10:36 -0500
Organization: Illuminati Online
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Status: RO
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TF Weekday Oct 16 1995 - War Dawn

The EI/AD: Easy Bake Ovens. Not. Actually, it's the Chronosphere, a time
machine made by the Decepticons that has lots of flashing lights and
funky sound effects.

The plot: The Aerialbots rescue the worlds' leaders from the Skyraiders at
the beginning of the episode, but they start having doubts about their
cause after seeing Starscream and Co. in action. After sparring with
Ironhide about loyalty and coolness, the Aerialbots go with Prime and Co.
to investigate some strange temporal readings on Cybertron. Megatron
catches wind of Omega Supreme's takeoff and decides that his new time
machine should be used not to steal energy from the past, but to eliminate
the Aerialbots by sending them to the beginning of time. The Aerials are
duped into the machine by a charming and persuasive Starscream, and sent
back 9 million years to the Golden Age of Cybertron.  The only thing that
kept them from going back to Carl Sagan times was Prime blowing up the
Chronosphere before it could continue teleporting.  Megatron runs away and
regroups, reactivating an old Guardian Robot to be his stooge. Meanwhile,
in the past the Aerials befriend an energy clerk named Orion Pax, his best
buddy Dyon, and his girlfriend Ariel. The Aerialbots witness the origins
of Megatron's army and watch as Pax and his friends are mowed down for
their energy, eliminating any admiration they ever had for the
Decepticons. The take Pax to a repair facility where a young Alpha Trion
rebuilds him into a new leader, Optimus Prime, who absolutely TRASHES
Megatron's forces. The Aerials then decide to go through with a suicide
mission to keep Megatron from collecting all of the energy in Pax's old
warehouse. Meanwhile in the future, Wheeljack has finished repairing the
Chronosphere just as Megatron attacks with his headless Guardian, and the
CS brings the Aerials back right before the energy stockpile blows. They
merge into Superion and do fancy wrestling moves on the Guardian, and
Megatron runs away. Then Silverbolt relates their story to Prime, and
history comes full circle.

The characters: Skydive gets to show off his brains by being the only
Aerialbot who begins to understand the temporal mess they're in. No PC
points for the character of Ariel; Pax is a clerk and Dyon is a
transport, but Ariel's function is 'girlfriend' and not much more. Ok, so
she gets rebuilt into Elita-1 and becomes a powerful warrior in her own
right, but you think they could make her a stronger presence to begin
with. It's assumed by a lot of fans that Dyon gets rebuilt into Ironhide;
the banter that Dyon exchanges with Pax sometimes sounds a lot like the
friendly banter between Prime and Ironhide. Speaking of Prime, this
episode establishes that Prime is the FIRST Autobot warrior. There were
probably others who got rebuilt later, or some who just picked up a gun
and stayed the same robot. But Prime is old, old, old. He represents
youth compared to Megatron's establishmentarianism ("You're old,
Megatron! Ready for the scrap heap... Junk! That's what you are, junk!")
But compared to the rest of his ranks, he's ancient. Oh, and it's nice to
see the three original Skyraiders working together the way the did in
More Than Meets the Eye, as a team. They don't often appear together much
in these later episodes. Oh, as a side note, you get to hear
Thundercracker's voice unprocessed when they discover the carcass of the
Guardian robot ("Yeah, they sure gave us a scare back in the old days...")
   Oh, one more thing... Is Prime usually a shoot-first,
ask-questions-later kind of guy? You don't really think he'd do something
like blow up the Chronosphere to stop it from sending the Aerialbots back
to creation.

The plot holes: Time machine. Eh. How can you really pick it apart? What
I'm wondering is why Ironhide is doing the repair work while Ratchet
stands there looking like a doofus. Is there or is there or is there not
water on Cybertron? Orion Pax unloads energy shipments from up river, but
the stock long shot of Cybertron shows no bodies of water of any kind.

Moving pictures: It's a poorly animated episode, with lots of careless
character misplacement and miscoloration. The scene at the beginning
where the Skyraiders are repairing themselves exchanges Starscream's and
Skywarp's colors (It was supposed to be Skywarp sitting on the table
looking smug and Starscream standing up, holding his hands together like
a toady, not the other way around.) Also, when the Aerialbots are rushing
to try and rescue Pax, they show Ariel running along side them, but she
also appears in the warehouse to get shot. Also, Megatron's transforming
energon cubes are very silly looking, but his transport drones are pretty
smooth. You wonder why they didn't take that opportunity to put in some
of the older Diaclone transport toys and market them as exclusives or
something. The fact that this episode reveals the secret origin of
Optimus Prime saves it from relative obscurity along the lines of 'City
of Steel.' There is the one cool scene where Prime mows down the crowd of
Decepticon transport drones a la Rambo, that's cool to look at. Also,
take a close look at the scene where Megatron's blasts bounce harmlessly
off of Prime's chest; Prime is not a foreground cel but a background
matte, which is temporarily 'illuminated' as each shot ricochets off.

The cuts: The entire unfriendly exchange between Slingshot and Ironhide
at the beginning is left out. Not even a hint of it remains. You don't
get a good sense that the Aerialbots are thinking about being turncoats
until they arrive on Cybertron and start chatting it up with Starscream.

Toys they should reissue: We need a new Ironhide and Ratchet. Oh wait, we
already have a new Ironhide. Ok, we need a new Ratchet.

Quotables:
"A warrior doesn't need a head! Just a good, strong body!"

KKC, anybody have any good suggestions on how to eliminate annoying
co-workers?
--
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