November 3, 2024 • 18 mins
Join Matt as he reviews "Blaster Blues," the 21st episode of Transformers Generation 1, Season 2. The episode centers around Blaster's attempt to broadcast rock music to the Autobots, which inadvertently leads to a Decepticon plot that causes widespread disruption on Earth. See what Matt thinks of this episode!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
We're reviewing episode 21,Blaster Blues, of Transformers Generation
1 season 2, so let's get after it.
This is Energon Entries.
(00:35):
Welcome to Energon entries, everybody.
As always, this is your host,Matt Fraits, and I hope that this
finds you well.
I want to say thank you outfront to some people who have reviewed
the show on Apple Podcasts,that is Autobot Victory Saber in
Orlando Coria, if I'm sayingyour name incorrectly, I do apologize.
Both of them had some reallynice things to say about the show
on Apple podcasts, and itmeans a lot to me to see that people
(00:56):
are enjoying what we're doing here.
So of course I say this at theend of every episode, but if you're
somebody who feels a certainway about the show and you want to
let me know, I really, reallydo appreciate it, and I do appreciate
everybody that comes to thispodcast every single week.
I do want to make a slightannouncement, and it's really a tweak
to our normal cadence.
Normally I come out withepisodes every Friday, but I do a
(01:17):
lot of other content, and alot of that content does come out
on Fridays.
And so to kind of make surethat I have enough time and that
my bandwidth doesn't get eatenup, I'm going to start putting these
episodes out on Saturdays.
And I know that a lot ofpodcasts don't usually do their work
on Saturdays, but for me,that's what's going to work because
I want to make sure that I cancome out with content every week
(01:39):
and I want to make sure thatyou enjoy it.
So speaking of content, let'sget to the episode recap.
The episode begins with Spike,Carly, and Blaster at a rock concert,
where Blaster decides to sharethe music with the rest of the Autobots
by broadcasting it acrosstheir channels, much to the frustration
of Optimus prime and the others.
Meanwhile, at the HalleyObservatory, Professor Halley tests
(02:02):
his new Voltronic Galaxer, adevice for communicating with extraterrestrial
life, only to attract theattention of the Decepticons, who
quickly sees it afterreceiving a distress call.
The Autobots arrive at theobservatory to find the device gone,
and Optimus vows to retrieveit as the Decepticons set up on the
moon to disrupt Earth's communications.
(02:23):
Blaster and Cosmos locate theDecepticons, but are captured and
forced to power the Galaxer.
The Decepticons interferencecauses widespread chaos on Earth,
with the Autobots strugglingto maintain control.
Recognizing Blaster's music inthe Decepticon signal.
Carly, Spike and the Autobotstrack the signal to the moon.
Omega supreme brings them intobattle, where Blaster and Cosmos
(02:46):
cleverly overload the galaxy,causing it to explode.
The episode ends with Megatronretreating and Blaster back on Earth,
broadcasting his music onceagain, much to the Autobots exasperation.
So we're going to start offwith non robot thoughts, as we always
do.
And I hope that people areappreciating the new format of the
(03:07):
show.
It's really helping meorganize my thoughts.
So this episode starts with arock concert.
And in every single episodewhere music is played in this show,
it is always the same exactrock music that is used even at the
very beginning of the show.
Way back in season one, weheard it from jazz, and we hear it
all the time now.
The band looks cliched for the 80s.
It's supposed to be, I guess,extreme music.
(03:29):
But how is this the only musicthat exists in this universe?
Just something that I actuallykind of.
I don't know.
I wish there was a little bitmore attention to detail put into
some of these episodes, buthey, I really can't complain.
And speaking of the music,Optimus prime and Sparkplug kind
of channel this old man energywhen their ears hurt from listening
(03:50):
to this music.
And that's something that youalways heard.
And my dad would always saythe music's too loud, and that's
kind of what they were giving.
And here, blasted Blaster is aphrase that Optimus prime used.
And while it is sort of anhomage to the episode title, it does
kind of speak to the way thatBlaster is portrayed.
We're going to get to that alittle bit later.
Last episode, I talked aboutBumblebee being the third wheel on
(04:11):
a date, and this time it'sBlaster on the date.
But the funny part is Blasterturns into a boombox, which is something
that is dated for people likeme and even older.
So him at a rock concert, itlooks like he's playing his music,
but apparently he'sbroadcasting it to the Autobots.
And so just another third wheel.
Blaster seems like he's a lotof fun, and I said that Bumblebee
(04:32):
seems the most human, butcertainly Blaster is probably portrayed
as the most fun Autobot out there.
This is another episode,though, with another failed attempt
at humans keeping anythingsecret from the Decepticons.
Now the galaxy is somethingthat sort of broadcasts out.
So you would think that theDecepticons would be able to intercept
these transmissions and findout about it.
(04:54):
And Obviously, they did.
They were there within secondsin the episode, and there were no
Autobots there to protect this.
However, in other episodes, wehave seen the Autobots be there,
and it just didn't matter.
So in this case, Megatron getsaway with the galaxy and all as well.
So getting to the humans.
Now, throughout this entireepisode, we see a bunch of humans
and we see a lot of humanbeings with professions.
(05:16):
And a lot of these professionslook cliched as what they would have
looked like back in the 80s.
You see conductors, you see pilots.
They all have a very clichedlook for what humans with those jobs
look like back then.
It's almost like when you seenurses in shows that predate a certain
time and they all kind of havethat same look.
They don't look like that anymore.
And now I think that'ssomething that dates this show when
(05:38):
you look back on it, becauseconductors don't look like the way
that conductors look.
They don't have this clichedlook with the overalls and the big
hat.
But you saw that here, and youdo see that throughout the show.
And I think that's probablysomething that's more akin to the
time period than necessarilythe people animating it.
It was just something thatkind of caught my eye and was quite
amusing.
But Carly makes anotherappearance in this episode.
(05:59):
And in this episode, she onceagain shows her worth, for the most
part.
As Power Glide is going down.
He has been shot.
They're going to crash.
She remembers that there arejetpacks within, and she gives Spike
the jetpack.
And Spike ends up lookingreally, really good by putting the
jetpack on the side of PowerGlide, saving their lives temporarily.
And I think that just showsthat Carly really, again, is great.
(06:22):
She is great for Spike, she'sgreat for the Autobots.
Spike is looking better andbetter each episode.
While you could say that Spikewas in trouble because he was in
Power Glide, it wasn't Spikegoing off on his own and getting
in trouble.
But the only problem with thisplan, something I'm kind of surprised
that Carly didn't foresee.
Obviously, a jetpack of thatsize, it's not going to be able to
(06:44):
power a Transformer for very long.
And they were going to go backto Autobot Headquarters with Optimus
Prime.
And of course, the jetpack wasrunning out of fuel, so it was a
little short sighted in that regard.
But overall, Karlie once againshows her worth.
And as we move on to theAutobots here, I think this is the
first time we see Omega Supreme.
It May also be the first timethat we see Cosmos, at least Cosmos
(07:08):
in any way that we knowanything about him.
But Omega Supreme, I'm almostpositive for sure.
And until now, the Autobotshave not been able to travel into
space.
So obviously Omega supreme isgoing to fill that void.
Cosmos fills that void.
On a smaller scale, Omegasupreme is massive, and he is an
entire space station.
He also has a tank.
(07:29):
He's incredibly powerful.
He is incredibly large.
He also seems to be the sizeof Devastator.
Now, we also talk about thefact that in this show, there are
a lot of size discrepancies,but so far, throughout this episode,
they seem to animate Omegasupreme very, very consistently,
even at the end when he grabsAstro Train.
Now, Astro Train is a space shuttle.
(07:51):
We'll get to him in a minute.
But again, Omega Supreme, Ithink, was consistently sized throughout.
Maybe the size throughout theentire episode wasn't consistent
in this episode because theAutobots have to be spread so thin.
We do see a lot more of the OG Autobots.
And I have to admit, it isnice to see that, because this is
the core of the show.
The Autobots that started outin the first season are still the
(08:14):
core of the Autobots that cameto Earth and started this whole thing.
And so it's nice to seeSunstreaker and Sideswipe and Mirage
and Trailbreaker now, most ofthem, at least the three out of the
four that I just named, wedon't see them after the transforming
and rolling out scene.
But Trailbreaker does help outa lot of the humans that are in the
snow with his force field.
And his force field is very,very powerful.
(08:35):
I believe I alluded to in aprevious episode a couple back how
his force field stoppedMegatron's fusion cannon.
So Trailbreaker is very, veryhelpful, and it's nice to see him
here and some others likeHuffer in this episode, because again,
the Autobots need to have allof their ranks at their disposal
in order to win this war sothey can get back Cybertron.
So it's nice to see them in episodes.
(08:57):
Even as we're introducing newAutobots to the fray, the Autobots
still have an inability to fly.
And even though they haveadded Autobots that can fly as part
of their transformation,overall in robot form, none of the
Autobots can fly.
And it does delay them fromgetting to save the humans and the
galaxy when they're slightlydelayed by blasters blasting of the
(09:19):
music within Autobot headquarters.
But they get there, andthey're far too little, too late.
And Then they have to driveaway to go find the Decepticons,
which they can't do.
And so this is a limitationthat they have, especially on Earth,
that seems to be very limiting.
In other episodes, they canget places very quickly.
In this episode, they can'tseem to do that.
So there is a little bit of acontinuity shift here, because it
(09:41):
seems like the Autobots shouldbe consistently either able to get
there fast or not able to getthere fast.
And this observatory seeminglywas in the United States, where in
other episodes, they've drivenall the way to Peru without problem.
So this is just something thatyou chalk up to probably different
animation studios, differentwriters, things like that.
But it is what it is.
(10:01):
And we talked about Cosmos already.
So Cosmos has to go to theMoon because he's the only Autobot
that can do so outside ofOmega Supreme.
But we'll get to that a littlebit later.
So Cosmos is the only Autobotoutside of Omega supreme that can
actually get to the Moon.
And so Cosmos takes Blasterand they go to the Moon to try and
find the Decepticons, becausethey're unable to find the Decepticons
(10:22):
on Earth.
So they find them, which is awesome.
Cosmos, though, lands right inthe direct view of Megatron, within
their new layer, or whateveryou want to call it, on the Moon.
And he sees them immediately,and they immediately get captured.
And that seems really bad.
He's the worst Hydro of all time.
If you're going to go thereand try and spy on the Decepticons,
you're going to do so byhiding, not by being in plain sight,
(10:46):
especially as something thatlooks nothing like your surroundings.
So Cosmo's really not, to me,showing his worth here.
And Blaster, in all of this,gets captured.
So Blaster obviously seemslike a lot of fun, and it seems obvious
to me that the writers orHasbro has put Blaster in there to
be a counter to Soundwave.
Here's the thing, though, isSoundwave is very useful.
(11:08):
He has a lot of utility,especially with the fact that all
of his tapes, like Ravage andLaserbeak, all have some kind of
function that they actuallyare really good at.
I think I said that Laserbeakmight be the most useful Decepticon.
Ravage is certainly up thereas well.
And so Soundwave is not justsome sound player.
He actually has a function.
He definitely is into theespionage part.
(11:30):
He spies.
So what does Blaster do?
Blaster seemingly is just arobot that can transmit sound places,
which is helpful in certain Regards.
But as he's portrayed in thisepisode, it seems like he's very,
very useless.
And I don't think that thecomparison is really fair, because
I think Blaster has hisstrengths, but it's not obvious what
they are based off of how he'sportrayed, especially in this episode
(11:53):
and especially during this.
Now, the Autobots are spreadvery, very thin, trying to save the
humans from all thesedifferent disasters that are popping
up over the planet.
And as I'm thinking about it,the Autobots once again are being
held back by the humansbecause they are trying to save them,
and they're putting themselvesin very vulnerable positions.
The Decepticons have all ofthe leverage here, but they don't
(12:13):
actually do anything with it,and that gets us to the Decepticons.
So at the beginning of theepisode, Starscream is involved in
taking over the galaxy, and henearly destroys the Galaxer when
they get there, that he shootsthe observatory.
Now, the thing I was thinkingabout was these massive Decepticons
land on top of this observatory.
Yes, it's made of concrete andother things, but it seems like,
(12:36):
would they be able to stand upthere without the structural integrity
of the observatory failing?
Obviously, if you're going toshoot it, that's going to help too.
But Megatron keeps Starscreamso close to all of these plans, so
close to High Command, and Ireally don't understand it.
Outside of this being themajor blind spot that Megatron has,
Starscream always, always,always gets them into trouble or
(12:59):
reverses some kind of goodfortune that they have.
And in this episode, it justso happened that it didn't necessarily
ruin it, but it almost did,and Megatron still keeps him around.
We talked earlier about thefact that this is the first time
we saw Omega Supreme.
I'm very positive this is thefirst time we see Astro Train.
However, this is not the firsttime we see a triple changer, and
(13:20):
we saw Blitzwing, I believe,one or two episodes ago.
But Astro Train specifically,I think, is the poster child for
the triple changers.
He can change into a spaceshuttle, he can change into a train,
and obviously he can changeinto his robot form.
So this is very useful becausewe see Astro Train in all of his
forms in this episode.
They don't necessarily giveAstro Train a lot to do outside of
(13:42):
being the go here, go thereguy, but it's obvious that the ability
that he has to be able tochange into multiple forms is going
to be very useful.
I just think it's very, verynifty and he's able to capture Cosmos
very easily with his tractor beam.
And so these are secondarypowers that Astrotrain has that seemingly
give him a leg up on,especially Cosmos, because Cosmos
(14:03):
can fly into space.
But other than that, I'm notreally sure what he can do.
So the Decepticons do a great job.
Once they get the galaxy, theyhide very, very well from the Autobots
and the humans, and they do soby going to the moon.
And I think that using themoon as a new base of operations
for this specific plan wasreally, really smart.
And of course, now theAutobots have Cosmos, which is convenient,
(14:24):
and so they can go look there.
But Megatron is scrambling allthe communications on Earth as part
of this, using the galaxy.
That's very, very smart.
Causing chaos just abouteverywhere on Earth.
Now, I said earlier that theAutobots had to go save that, but
we saw that in one place, andI can only imagine where all of these
different disasters keptpopping up.
They don't really allude to that.
(14:44):
So Megatron's plan seeminglyis very one dimensional.
And at the end of the episode,despite all this blustering he did
about taking over Earth andnot giving back Earth unless he got
what he wanted.
Optimus prime, who wascompromised in this episode after
getting hit by either Durge orRamjet, I can't remember which, pushes
Megatron off of him in afight, grabs his cannon and says
(15:06):
stop or go away or whatever.
And Megatron basically says,okay, we'll just do that.
He easily retreats.
So this episode is verystrange in that regard because the
planet seemingly was great,but it was not executed well.
There were no animation quirksthat I could see during this watch.
I'm sure that there are, butagain, when I have to look up and
then look down to type notes,I won't necessarily see all of them.
(15:28):
I'm sure that some kind ofwiki page has all of these listed
out and everything, but Ididn't see any during this watch.
How did I feel about this overall?
Admittedly, I do notunderstand why Blaster was the focus
of this episode.
It really didn't do anythingfor character development for him.
It just made him look like ateenager who blasts his music.
(15:49):
They did say that he saved theday, but to me, that's extremely
loose as a plot point.
It didn't really make a lot of sense.
All of the happenings in thisepisode could have happened without
Blaster at all.
And so I'm just sort ofconfused by this episode being Blaster
Centric when I didn't reallylearn anything about him except he's
not really that useful.
He's really there for comic relief.
(16:11):
Also, Megatron's plan wasawful in its execution.
Megatron throughout the serieshas had a propensity to have great
plans that don't work out, butusually they get to a certain point
because he has done somethingto get the plan to a place where
he can almost succeed.
Here, he steals the galaxy,scrambles communications, has everything
(16:33):
in chaos, and then does nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Multiple times in this episodehe tells the humans or else.
Or else what?
He doesn't do anything.
It just kind of fell flat forme, this episode.
It was unnecessary.
It didn't do anything todevelop any character.
It didn't bring any story along.
It didn't introduce us to somenew Transformers like Omega supreme
(16:54):
and Astro Train, and hopefullythat will be some fruit that can
be bared later on.
But overall, not a fan of this episode.
Episode Next time we're goingto review a Decepticon Raider in
King Arthur's Court, do notforget you can find us on Instagram.
Energonentriespod is thehandle and if you want to follow
me on YouTube, Energon Entriesis what you would Search subscribe
(17:15):
like all of that good stuff.
I do have some ideas that I'mworking on to bring more content
to that page, possibly evensomething larger than that, so stay
tuned for that.
Those of you have subscribed.
I hope this finds everybody well.
I hope this finds everybodysafe and I'll talk to you all next
time.
This is Energon entries.
(17:58):
The opinions and viewpointsexpressed on Energon entries are
those of Matt Fraits and hisguests, and not necessarily those
of the Maddy Ice Media Network.
Energon entries is exclusivelyowned by Matt Fraits and is brought
to you by the Matty I.
We're reviewing episode 21,Blaster Blues, of Transformers Generation
1 season 2, so let's get after it.
This is Energon Entries.
(00:35):
Welcome to Energon entries, everybody.
As always, this is your host,Matt Fraits, and I hope that this
finds you well.
I want to say thank you outfront to some people who have reviewed
the show on Apple Podcasts,that is Autobot Victory Saber in
Orlando Coria, if I'm sayingyour name incorrectly, I do apologize.
Both of them had some reallynice things to say about the show
on Apple podcasts, and itmeans a lot to me to see that people
(00:56):
are enjoying what we're doing here.
So of course I say this at theend of every episode, but if you're
somebody who feels a certainway about the show and you want to
let me know, I really, reallydo appreciate it, and I do appreciate
everybody that comes to thispodcast every single week.
I do want to make a slightannouncement, and it's really a tweak
to our normal cadence.
Normally I come out withepisodes every Friday, but I do a
(01:17):
lot of other content, and alot of that content does come out
on Fridays.
And so to kind of make surethat I have enough time and that
my bandwidth doesn't get eatenup, I'm going to start putting these
episodes out on Saturdays.
And I know that a lot ofpodcasts don't usually do their work
on Saturdays, but for me,that's what's going to work because
I want to make sure that I cancome out with content every week
(01:39):
and I want to make sure thatyou enjoy it.
So speaking of content, let'sget to the episode recap.
The episode begins with Spike,Carly, and Blaster at a rock concert,
where Blaster decides to sharethe music with the rest of the Autobots
by broadcasting it acrosstheir channels, much to the frustration
of Optimus prime and the others.
Meanwhile, at the HalleyObservatory, Professor Halley tests
(02:02):
his new Voltronic Galaxer, adevice for communicating with extraterrestrial
life, only to attract theattention of the Decepticons, who
quickly sees it afterreceiving a distress call.
The Autobots arrive at theobservatory to find the device gone,
and Optimus vows to retrieveit as the Decepticons set up on the
moon to disrupt Earth's communications.
(02:23):
Blaster and Cosmos locate theDecepticons, but are captured and
forced to power the Galaxer.
The Decepticons interferencecauses widespread chaos on Earth,
with the Autobots strugglingto maintain control.
Recognizing Blaster's music inthe Decepticon signal.
Carly, Spike and the Autobotstrack the signal to the moon.
Omega supreme brings them intobattle, where Blaster and Cosmos
(02:46):
cleverly overload the galaxy,causing it to explode.
The episode ends with Megatronretreating and Blaster back on Earth,
broadcasting his music onceagain, much to the Autobots exasperation.
So we're going to start offwith non robot thoughts, as we always
do.
And I hope that people areappreciating the new format of the
(03:07):
show.
It's really helping meorganize my thoughts.
So this episode starts with arock concert.
And in every single episodewhere music is played in this show,
it is always the same exactrock music that is used even at the
very beginning of the show.
Way back in season one, weheard it from jazz, and we hear it
all the time now.
The band looks cliched for the 80s.
It's supposed to be, I guess,extreme music.
(03:29):
But how is this the only musicthat exists in this universe?
Just something that I actuallykind of.
I don't know.
I wish there was a little bitmore attention to detail put into
some of these episodes, buthey, I really can't complain.
And speaking of the music,Optimus prime and Sparkplug kind
of channel this old man energywhen their ears hurt from listening
(03:50):
to this music.
And that's something that youalways heard.
And my dad would always saythe music's too loud, and that's
kind of what they were giving.
And here, blasted Blaster is aphrase that Optimus prime used.
And while it is sort of anhomage to the episode title, it does
kind of speak to the way thatBlaster is portrayed.
We're going to get to that alittle bit later.
Last episode, I talked aboutBumblebee being the third wheel on
(04:11):
a date, and this time it'sBlaster on the date.
But the funny part is Blasterturns into a boombox, which is something
that is dated for people likeme and even older.
So him at a rock concert, itlooks like he's playing his music,
but apparently he'sbroadcasting it to the Autobots.
And so just another third wheel.
Blaster seems like he's a lotof fun, and I said that Bumblebee
(04:32):
seems the most human, butcertainly Blaster is probably portrayed
as the most fun Autobot out there.
This is another episode,though, with another failed attempt
at humans keeping anythingsecret from the Decepticons.
Now the galaxy is somethingthat sort of broadcasts out.
So you would think that theDecepticons would be able to intercept
these transmissions and findout about it.
(04:54):
And Obviously, they did.
They were there within secondsin the episode, and there were no
Autobots there to protect this.
However, in other episodes, wehave seen the Autobots be there,
and it just didn't matter.
So in this case, Megatron getsaway with the galaxy and all as well.
So getting to the humans.
Now, throughout this entireepisode, we see a bunch of humans
and we see a lot of humanbeings with professions.
(05:16):
And a lot of these professionslook cliched as what they would have
looked like back in the 80s.
You see conductors, you see pilots.
They all have a very clichedlook for what humans with those jobs
look like back then.
It's almost like when you seenurses in shows that predate a certain
time and they all kind of havethat same look.
They don't look like that anymore.
And now I think that'ssomething that dates this show when
(05:38):
you look back on it, becauseconductors don't look like the way
that conductors look.
They don't have this clichedlook with the overalls and the big
hat.
But you saw that here, and youdo see that throughout the show.
And I think that's probablysomething that's more akin to the
time period than necessarilythe people animating it.
It was just something thatkind of caught my eye and was quite
amusing.
But Carly makes anotherappearance in this episode.
(05:59):
And in this episode, she onceagain shows her worth, for the most
part.
As Power Glide is going down.
He has been shot.
They're going to crash.
She remembers that there arejetpacks within, and she gives Spike
the jetpack.
And Spike ends up lookingreally, really good by putting the
jetpack on the side of PowerGlide, saving their lives temporarily.
And I think that just showsthat Carly really, again, is great.
(06:22):
She is great for Spike, she'sgreat for the Autobots.
Spike is looking better andbetter each episode.
While you could say that Spikewas in trouble because he was in
Power Glide, it wasn't Spikegoing off on his own and getting
in trouble.
But the only problem with thisplan, something I'm kind of surprised
that Carly didn't foresee.
Obviously, a jetpack of thatsize, it's not going to be able to
(06:44):
power a Transformer for very long.
And they were going to go backto Autobot Headquarters with Optimus
Prime.
And of course, the jetpack wasrunning out of fuel, so it was a
little short sighted in that regard.
But overall, Karlie once againshows her worth.
And as we move on to theAutobots here, I think this is the
first time we see Omega Supreme.
It May also be the first timethat we see Cosmos, at least Cosmos
(07:08):
in any way that we knowanything about him.
But Omega Supreme, I'm almostpositive for sure.
And until now, the Autobotshave not been able to travel into
space.
So obviously Omega supreme isgoing to fill that void.
Cosmos fills that void.
On a smaller scale, Omegasupreme is massive, and he is an
entire space station.
He also has a tank.
(07:29):
He's incredibly powerful.
He is incredibly large.
He also seems to be the sizeof Devastator.
Now, we also talk about thefact that in this show, there are
a lot of size discrepancies,but so far, throughout this episode,
they seem to animate Omegasupreme very, very consistently,
even at the end when he grabsAstro Train.
Now, Astro Train is a space shuttle.
(07:51):
We'll get to him in a minute.
But again, Omega Supreme, Ithink, was consistently sized throughout.
Maybe the size throughout theentire episode wasn't consistent
in this episode because theAutobots have to be spread so thin.
We do see a lot more of the OG Autobots.
And I have to admit, it isnice to see that, because this is
the core of the show.
The Autobots that started outin the first season are still the
(08:14):
core of the Autobots that cameto Earth and started this whole thing.
And so it's nice to seeSunstreaker and Sideswipe and Mirage
and Trailbreaker now, most ofthem, at least the three out of the
four that I just named, wedon't see them after the transforming
and rolling out scene.
But Trailbreaker does help outa lot of the humans that are in the
snow with his force field.
And his force field is very,very powerful.
(08:35):
I believe I alluded to in aprevious episode a couple back how
his force field stoppedMegatron's fusion cannon.
So Trailbreaker is very, veryhelpful, and it's nice to see him
here and some others likeHuffer in this episode, because again,
the Autobots need to have allof their ranks at their disposal
in order to win this war sothey can get back Cybertron.
So it's nice to see them in episodes.
(08:57):
Even as we're introducing newAutobots to the fray, the Autobots
still have an inability to fly.
And even though they haveadded Autobots that can fly as part
of their transformation,overall in robot form, none of the
Autobots can fly.
And it does delay them fromgetting to save the humans and the
galaxy when they're slightlydelayed by blasters blasting of the
(09:19):
music within Autobot headquarters.
But they get there, andthey're far too little, too late.
And Then they have to driveaway to go find the Decepticons,
which they can't do.
And so this is a limitationthat they have, especially on Earth,
that seems to be very limiting.
In other episodes, they canget places very quickly.
In this episode, they can'tseem to do that.
So there is a little bit of acontinuity shift here, because it
(09:41):
seems like the Autobots shouldbe consistently either able to get
there fast or not able to getthere fast.
And this observatory seeminglywas in the United States, where in
other episodes, they've drivenall the way to Peru without problem.
So this is just something thatyou chalk up to probably different
animation studios, differentwriters, things like that.
But it is what it is.
(10:01):
And we talked about Cosmos already.
So Cosmos has to go to theMoon because he's the only Autobot
that can do so outside ofOmega Supreme.
But we'll get to that a littlebit later.
So Cosmos is the only Autobotoutside of Omega supreme that can
actually get to the Moon.
And so Cosmos takes Blasterand they go to the Moon to try and
find the Decepticons, becausethey're unable to find the Decepticons
(10:22):
on Earth.
So they find them, which is awesome.
Cosmos, though, lands right inthe direct view of Megatron, within
their new layer, or whateveryou want to call it, on the Moon.
And he sees them immediately,and they immediately get captured.
And that seems really bad.
He's the worst Hydro of all time.
If you're going to go thereand try and spy on the Decepticons,
you're going to do so byhiding, not by being in plain sight,
(10:46):
especially as something thatlooks nothing like your surroundings.
So Cosmo's really not, to me,showing his worth here.
And Blaster, in all of this,gets captured.
So Blaster obviously seemslike a lot of fun, and it seems obvious
to me that the writers orHasbro has put Blaster in there to
be a counter to Soundwave.
Here's the thing, though, isSoundwave is very useful.
(11:08):
He has a lot of utility,especially with the fact that all
of his tapes, like Ravage andLaserbeak, all have some kind of
function that they actuallyare really good at.
I think I said that Laserbeakmight be the most useful Decepticon.
Ravage is certainly up thereas well.
And so Soundwave is not justsome sound player.
He actually has a function.
He definitely is into theespionage part.
(11:30):
He spies.
So what does Blaster do?
Blaster seemingly is just arobot that can transmit sound places,
which is helpful in certain Regards.
But as he's portrayed in thisepisode, it seems like he's very,
very useless.
And I don't think that thecomparison is really fair, because
I think Blaster has hisstrengths, but it's not obvious what
they are based off of how he'sportrayed, especially in this episode
(11:53):
and especially during this.
Now, the Autobots are spreadvery, very thin, trying to save the
humans from all thesedifferent disasters that are popping
up over the planet.
And as I'm thinking about it,the Autobots once again are being
held back by the humansbecause they are trying to save them,
and they're putting themselvesin very vulnerable positions.
The Decepticons have all ofthe leverage here, but they don't
(12:13):
actually do anything with it,and that gets us to the Decepticons.
So at the beginning of theepisode, Starscream is involved in
taking over the galaxy, and henearly destroys the Galaxer when
they get there, that he shootsthe observatory.
Now, the thing I was thinkingabout was these massive Decepticons
land on top of this observatory.
Yes, it's made of concrete andother things, but it seems like,
(12:36):
would they be able to stand upthere without the structural integrity
of the observatory failing?
Obviously, if you're going toshoot it, that's going to help too.
But Megatron keeps Starscreamso close to all of these plans, so
close to High Command, and Ireally don't understand it.
Outside of this being themajor blind spot that Megatron has,
Starscream always, always,always gets them into trouble or
(12:59):
reverses some kind of goodfortune that they have.
And in this episode, it justso happened that it didn't necessarily
ruin it, but it almost did,and Megatron still keeps him around.
We talked earlier about thefact that this is the first time
we saw Omega Supreme.
I'm very positive this is thefirst time we see Astro Train.
However, this is not the firsttime we see a triple changer, and
(13:20):
we saw Blitzwing, I believe,one or two episodes ago.
But Astro Train specifically,I think, is the poster child for
the triple changers.
He can change into a spaceshuttle, he can change into a train,
and obviously he can changeinto his robot form.
So this is very useful becausewe see Astro Train in all of his
forms in this episode.
They don't necessarily giveAstro Train a lot to do outside of
(13:42):
being the go here, go thereguy, but it's obvious that the ability
that he has to be able tochange into multiple forms is going
to be very useful.
I just think it's very, verynifty and he's able to capture Cosmos
very easily with his tractor beam.
And so these are secondarypowers that Astrotrain has that seemingly
give him a leg up on,especially Cosmos, because Cosmos
(14:03):
can fly into space.
But other than that, I'm notreally sure what he can do.
So the Decepticons do a great job.
Once they get the galaxy, theyhide very, very well from the Autobots
and the humans, and they do soby going to the moon.
And I think that using themoon as a new base of operations
for this specific plan wasreally, really smart.
And of course, now theAutobots have Cosmos, which is convenient,
(14:24):
and so they can go look there.
But Megatron is scrambling allthe communications on Earth as part
of this, using the galaxy.
That's very, very smart.
Causing chaos just abouteverywhere on Earth.
Now, I said earlier that theAutobots had to go save that, but
we saw that in one place, andI can only imagine where all of these
different disasters keptpopping up.
They don't really allude to that.
(14:44):
So Megatron's plan seeminglyis very one dimensional.
And at the end of the episode,despite all this blustering he did
about taking over Earth andnot giving back Earth unless he got
what he wanted.
Optimus prime, who wascompromised in this episode after
getting hit by either Durge orRamjet, I can't remember which, pushes
Megatron off of him in afight, grabs his cannon and says
(15:06):
stop or go away or whatever.
And Megatron basically says,okay, we'll just do that.
He easily retreats.
So this episode is verystrange in that regard because the
planet seemingly was great,but it was not executed well.
There were no animation quirksthat I could see during this watch.
I'm sure that there are, butagain, when I have to look up and
then look down to type notes,I won't necessarily see all of them.
(15:28):
I'm sure that some kind ofwiki page has all of these listed
out and everything, but Ididn't see any during this watch.
How did I feel about this overall?
Admittedly, I do notunderstand why Blaster was the focus
of this episode.
It really didn't do anythingfor character development for him.
It just made him look like ateenager who blasts his music.
(15:49):
They did say that he saved theday, but to me, that's extremely
loose as a plot point.
It didn't really make a lot of sense.
All of the happenings in thisepisode could have happened without
Blaster at all.
And so I'm just sort ofconfused by this episode being Blaster
Centric when I didn't reallylearn anything about him except he's
not really that useful.
He's really there for comic relief.
(16:11):
Also, Megatron's plan wasawful in its execution.
Megatron throughout the serieshas had a propensity to have great
plans that don't work out, butusually they get to a certain point
because he has done somethingto get the plan to a place where
he can almost succeed.
Here, he steals the galaxy,scrambles communications, has everything
(16:33):
in chaos, and then does nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Multiple times in this episodehe tells the humans or else.
Or else what?
He doesn't do anything.
It just kind of fell flat forme, this episode.
It was unnecessary.
It didn't do anything todevelop any character.
It didn't bring any story along.
It didn't introduce us to somenew Transformers like Omega supreme
(16:54):
and Astro Train, and hopefullythat will be some fruit that can
be bared later on.
But overall, not a fan of this episode.
Episode Next time we're goingto review a Decepticon Raider in
King Arthur's Court, do notforget you can find us on Instagram.
Energonentriespod is thehandle and if you want to follow
me on YouTube, Energon Entriesis what you would Search subscribe
(17:15):
like all of that good stuff.
I do have some ideas that I'mworking on to bring more content
to that page, possibly evensomething larger than that, so stay
tuned for that.
Those of you have subscribed.
I hope this finds everybody well.
I hope this finds everybodysafe and I'll talk to you all next
time.
This is Energon entries.
(17:58):
The opinions and viewpointsexpressed on Energon entries are
those of Matt Fraits and hisguests, and not necessarily those
of the Maddy Ice Media Network.
Energon entries is exclusivelyowned by Matt Fraits and is brought
to you by the Matty I.
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