The Big Picture: Nothing Gold Can Stay - The Most Bizarre Episode of Transformers

[Souplex]

Electrum is actually a real metal.
It's a naturally occurring alloy of silver and gold with some other trace metals.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrum

 

[Storm Dragon]

Michael Bay can't possibly fuck up Optimus Prime riding a giant, robotic, fire-breathing tyrannosaurus, right?

Right?

 

[Muspelheim]

Dear me, that looked more like some sort of robo-rave gone terribly wrong. I love the bit with the flying tank (somehow) getting shot down, flattening Bambi's house with fitting music score. I could watch it all day.

I suppose it's the (very tiny) age gap, Transformers have never been a part of my life. I do understand the affection for it, and if nothing else, it's well earned affection.

(And come on, beachbot, look around. A few trees got burned and some animals scared. There seems to be plenty of forest left just a few hundred meters away, silly)

 

[tm96]

You know, there is a silver lining to Michael Bay still making the Transformers movies.

For one, every time one of these clusterf*ck movies comes out, the internet gets a-buzzin' with fellow 80's kids like me to reminisce about how wonderfully bizarre The Transformers were when we were growing up. Old episodes get re-capped, favorite-thing lists are written, the music is everywhere and I get to wax nostalgic about a franchise that might have been created to sell toys, but the fans made it something so much more, which is the very essence of what pop-culture is.

For another, it gives me optimism and hope. There have been three Bay-ergized Transformers movies so far, one kind of okay (which my own hindsight continues to find new reasons to sympathize with) and two that are complete dreck, but you know what? Transformers is still here. It's still fun. Bay didn't take that from us. So honestly, to anyone out there still flipping their shit like someone stole or ruined or somehow RAPED your childhood, chill the fuck out, would you? Go play Fall of Cybertron and realize the franchise is still every bit as fun and entertaining as it ever was.

That is actually uplifting but here a thought what if the new one doesn't end up being a complete butchering of a pile that used to be a prime franchise horse. Also I think Transformers Prime did something like this to a degree when they show us Cybertron in it's lifeless dead form a direct result of the fighting that has consumed the planet for eons. That I think could be Earth's future.

Again also the music in the episode reminds me of Yahtzee's Spec ending "Perhaps this is an inevitable part of gaming growing up, as our childish fantasies are torn from us and we are forced to confront consequences in an unfair, uncaring and unavoidable world of hatred, misery and death. *pffffffffft*"

 

[youji itami]

Dear me, that looked more like some sort of robo-rave gone terribly wrong. I love the bit with the flying tank (somehow) getting shot down, flattening Bambi's house with fitting music score. I could watch it all day.

I suppose it's the (very tiny) age gap, Transformers have never been a part of my life. I do understand the affection for it, and if nothing else, it's well earned affection.

(And come on, beachbot, look around. A few trees got burned and some animals scared. There seems to be plenty of forest left just a few hundred meters away, silly)

Blitzwing a triple changer with both jet and tank alternate mode's. That scene is cut right after he transformed from jet to tank in mid air for landing.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Not very smart are they? Both groups know that the gold stuff makes them immune to lasers. So what do they do when they are both covered in that gold? HAVE A MASSIVE LASER FIGHT. Granted its a kids show so you shouldnt expect much, but really wouldnt they have been better off punching and kicking each other instead of firing pointless at each other?

 

[youji itami]

Wow! Aside from the musical screw-up, that is one dark as hell episode of Transformers. Nice find, Bob.

On a related subject, as of today, Rotten Tomatoes has a 50% rating for Transformers: Age of Extinction with only six reviews and half are negative. Well, technically, the one from Variety is negative but its labeled as a positive review.

Guess Rotten Tomatoes never heard of sarcasm.

So this week's Escape to the Movies is going to be interesting to say the least. ^^;

I'd like to know which Internet movie reviewer is going to have the biggest mental meltdown after seeing this movie. I'm betting it will be tied between Brad "Cinema Snob" Jones and Noah "Spoony" Antwiler. I know its really early to make this statement but we're dealing with a franchise that has found new ways to be a mixture of being over-hyped, insulting to one-celled organisms, and having the intellectual depth of a shot glass. If you believe this series can get remotely better with the same people working on it, then you need to lower your hopes and standards. I'm just saying.

Yeah some of the negative reviews say this is better than the previous 3 (though still terrible) by focusing more on the human characters and less on the robots ... WTF!

No, that is not what we actually want damn it.

 

[Robot-Jesus]

SOMEONE ELSE REMEMBERS BEAST MACHINES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[vid87]

I know it's an interesting, poignant episode and all, but was I the only one who could only focus on the fact that Beach Comber sounds like Chester Cheetah for some reason (the old one, not the creepy new British one)?

 

[Souplex]

SOMEONE ELSE REMEMBERS BEAST MACHINES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Everyone remembers the terrible follow-up to the greatness of Beast Wars, we just don't like to talk about it

 

[Diddy_Mao]

This is a thematically weird episode but for sheer "WTF" enjoyment I'll always fall back on Carnage in C-Minor.

Autobots and Decepticons find themselves on a planet inexplicably ruled by music, Soundwave and Galvatron devise a plan to weaponize their "perfect harmony," pew pew pew, Autobots win.

Not a great setup, and in terms of story it's nowhere near as dumb as Surprise Party, Child's Play or The Girl who loved Powerglide, but it's one of the absolute best if you're a fan and can enjoy the truly baffling number of animation errors that made it into this episode.

Huge Ultra Magnus

Spoiler

Tiny Blaster

Spoiler

Autobot Soundwave

Spoiler

and my personal favorite
Galvatron and Soundwave BFFs

Spoiler

There's a bunch more. Characters who were meant to be dead showing up for no good reason, Decepticons and Autobots randomly fighting against their own teams, Devastator and Defensor fighting alongside the Constructicons and Protectobots...etc. etc.

 

[Bbleds]

So wow, definitely bizarre but looking back at this show I can't really remember much that isn't due to inherit nature of the show's set-up.

Also, am I the only one that thought something along the lines of this as the first scene of the hidden paradise was found?
"Zippity doo-dah, zippity-yay random transforming robots are about to ruin your day"

 

[Jacked Assassin]

SOMEONE ELSE REMEMBERS BEAST MACHINES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Everyone remembers the terrible follow-up to the greatness of Beast Wars, we just don't like to talk about it

Jet Storm wasn't bad....
And that whole thing with that wolf being named Noble is kind of bizarre when you look up the meaning to Adolf....

But beyond that Beasts Machines was horrible.

The plot escalates way too fast.
If the Maximals win its usually based purely on Optimus Primal's Will Power alone.
The odd return of Waspinator.
Silverbolt no longer being a fusion of Eagle & Wolf. Though it could've been more interesting to see his spark split between 2 vehicons.
Somehow Cheetor now being defined as older than Rattrap when Beast Wars had it the other way around. Even with Rattrap being at one point the temp leader in Beast Wars.
The transformations between bot & animal were horrible. Especially with that "I Am Transformed" command being way too long.
The final version of Megatron (Junior or whatever you want to call him) does in fact (or would) have a beast mode. But whoever wrote the plot to Beast Machines didn't pay attention or ignored Beast Wars.
Noble seems shoehorned in really bad along with the bat bot.
And yeah that whole organic core thing was pretty stupid.

Even though I haven't watched the rest of Bay ruining everyone else's childhood, Beast Machines is worse than those movies.

 

[Muspelheim]

Blitzwing a triple changer with both jet and tank alternate mode's. That scene is cut right after he transformed from jet to tank in mid air for landing.

Ah! I thought it was something like that going on. Just looked so amusing, as if he had loaded himself into the wrong robo-body that day and only realised that after take-off.

"Wait. I'm a tank. Heeeeeeelp!"

 

[faefrost]

I may be misremembering this, but didn't that whole "laserproof gold coating" schtick make a return appearance in the story arc where they brought back Optimus Prime? Something about it blocked some sort of contagion so they coated Optimus in it and resurrected him to save everyone?

 

[Chester Rabbit]

Yeah that does seem pretty dark for that series I guess. Mind you I grew up with Beast Wars and Beast Machines so when compared to episodes with Optimus Primal losing his marbles(or pretty much all of season two Beast Machines) or Dinobot dying this is pretty light.

One thing though...was the "Tree Hugger" robot voiced by...Falcor?! All I could hear while he was smooth talking nature was "Never give up and luck will always find you"

 

[Triaed]

The slow violin rendition on the Transformers theme was wonderful!

On a somewhat unrelated matter, isn't electrum one of the allomantic metals in Brandon Sanderson's Mystborn series? I suppose electrum will show up here and there in pop culture

 

[Lightknight]

Whoa, that came out of nowhere, Bob. Fantastic video. I certainly wasn't expecting to see anything profound about an episode of transformers but you pulled it out of thin air and now I can't not see it.

 

[leviadragon99]

Huh, well that's pretty interesting... I'm rather curious about those other G1 episodes Bob mentioned as well, in particular the Key to Vector Sigma, since that I remember from a later transformers incarnation.

 

[WanderingFool]

Actually, I think the music adds a rather ironic twist to the ending. Granted, kids back in the day wouldnt have noticed it, but the usual heroic music while looking at a blasted landscape, adds the idea that, "Yeah, this is what our heroism is!" to the whole thing.

I bet theres a pretty clear America analogy there.