Episode Transcript
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We're reviewing episode 20,Desertion of the Dinobots part two,
this time on Energon entries.
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Welcome back to Energonentries, everybody.
As always, this is your host,Matt Fraits, and I hope that this
finds you well.
I want to thank everybody whois new, everybody who is old to this
podcast.
It just continues to grow,which kind of blows my mind because
I feel like there's so manygreat people out there doing Transformers
work, and so for people togive compliments and say how much
they like what I'm doing, itmeans a lot.
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Last time we reviewed part oneof this two part episode and with
that, let's get to the episode recap.
The episode begins with Spikeand Carly arriving on Cybertro through
the space bridge, where theyimmediately face off against Shockwave.
After narrowly escaping intoDecepticon headquarters, Carly is
injured while sabotaging acomputer, rendering the space bridge
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temporarily non functional.
With the Autobots back onEarth shut down, Spike contacts Sparkplug
who guides them towardWheeljack's old lab where they reunite
with Swoop.
Swoop explains that theDinobots have been captured by the
Decepticons and taken to theCybertonium pit.
Along the way, Spike, Carlyand Swoop encounter various dangers,
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but they eventually reach thepit where they discover that Shockwave
has reprogrammed the Dinobotsto serve the Decepticons.
Carly successfully restorestheir memories and the Dinobots help
them escape by destroying theSentinel Drones.
Sparkplug reroutes the spacebridge to land near Autobot headquarters,
and despite Shockwave'sattempts to stop them, the Dinobots
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and humans escape back toEarth with a shipment of Cybertonium.
The episode ends with Optimusprime awarding Spike and Carly with
honorary Autobot medals andGrimlock reluctantly agreeing to
follow Prime's orders for now.
So we now have part two ofthis, of course.
And somebody did tell me lastweek as I posted this on YouTube,
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or at least the audio onYouTube, that this is the last time
that we're going to see theDinobots for the rest of the season.
Until the movie.
Not something that I knew.
But I do want to thank thatcommenter as they've been commenting
every week on the audioepisodes on YouTube.
So knowing that, it's kind ofinteresting seeing how the Dinobots
were portrayed here, but we'regoing to start with non robot thought
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so because we have a twoparter or a multi parter here, we're
getting the narrator, thaticonic narrator recapping part one.
It always brings a smile to myface because it Just has this nostalgic
feel.
It kind of gets you in themood for what's going to happen.
And even at my age, eventhough I know that this show, it
doesn't age the way that Iremember it as a kid, this narrator
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does age well, and I love it.
So in this episode, there is asubterranean transit system for Cybertron.
And I said last episode thatthey didn't do enough in this season
to give us Cybertronian history.
So I think that addingsomething like that is a nice touch.
Cybertron is a big planet, andeven though the Transformers are
big, they do need to travelfast across it.
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So something as utilitarian asa subterranean transit system, I
think is actually really cool.
Now, of course, you have weirddiscrepancies with size, because
the humans seem to be small attimes in the transit cars, but then
size seems to be inconsistent.
As Swoop looks small, thehumans look regular size.
So.
And that's just going to happen.
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I've come to grips with that fact.
So, Spike, Carly, Swoop, theyfind themselves in the bowels of
Cybertron.
And much like the depths ofthe ocean, there are primitive systems
that they found that seem tobe alive and well, but had been untouched.
This is another little nuggetthat I feel like adds depth to the
planet as a whole, because wereally have only seen surface level.
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And I mean that, bothliterally and figuratively of Cybertron.
And so to go into the historyeven more in a physical sense, I
thought was really neat.
And I liked that they werewatching old footage of the parts
of Cybertron and what theyused to be like.
And again, they're going intogreat depth, and it's something that,
again, is lacking throughout.
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We see how the war actually progressed.
We know that the war issomething that is a.
Is a concept, and that's howwe got here.
But we rarely get to see whatwas lost because of the war.
They don't show us what old,old Cybertron was.
And I love it because itpredates Optimus prime and Megatron,
at least according to these videos.
However, of course, that movietime left them vulnerable to capture.
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But I think that it'simportant, at least from my perspective
and for this podcast that theyshowed us that even though it really
didn't do the humans any favors.
And speaking of the humans,Carly and Spike being so small compared
to the Transformers in thissense gives them an advantage in
moving around on Cybertron.
It allowed them to easilyescape, find Cybertron central computer.
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And that's something.
Again, I talk about thediscrepancy with size.
But I do appreciate thatbecause they used it to their advantage.
It was something that waslogical or reasonable.
And I don't know if that'sbecause Carly is with them, but it
just so happened that theywere able to move about the cabin
freely.
And I like that.
Now Carly does kind of faround and find out when she's attempting
to override the central computer.
Spike does tell her to becareful and not to touch anything.
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And by doing so, she falls andinjures herself and kind of triggers
a fail safe on the computerfor it to shut down.
This is a rare mistake thatCarly makes because I said last time
that she's a baddie and thatshe always delivers.
And in this case, she got alittle bit too big for her britches,
if you want to say that.
But in this scene, there is alittle bit of a weirdness in that
there's a human sized ladderto escape.
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It seems awfully convenient.
I mean, yes, again, it's a cartoon.
It's way too small for any robot.
And I just said that they aresmall compared to the Transformers
because they've been shownthat way on Cybertron.
So for there to be a ladderthat is just human size seems a little
bit too.
It's a little bit too convenient.
But later on in the episode,despite her mistake earlier that
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gets her injured, she somehowcomes out of it.
They don't really explain howshe's able to get better and move
better, but she once againproves her worth by fixing the Dinobots.
And in this scene, though, shedoes sort of like a caress of Spike's
face.
And it's almost in a snarky way.
It tells me that she's intohim, but it also kind of has friend
zone vibes too.
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And I just thought to myself,she is so out of his league.
And I don't care what anybodysays she is.
Spike, up until this point,has basically messed up all the time.
And so for her to be into him,he should just count his lucky stars
and move on.
And I mentioned earlier thatSpike and Carly were made honorary
Autobots after saving themwith the Cybertonium.
And this is, in my opinion,the first time that Spike hasn't
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messed up any of their plans.
And I kind of like thatbecause up until now he's sort of
been a nuisance, and now he issomebody that the Autobots can count
on.
And I like that.
And speaking of the Autobots,this was obviously a Dinobot heavy
episode, and I think that theDinobots saw a little bit of a change
in them.
So they're captured due to thenumbers game when they get to Cybertron.
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And this all kind of fits intothis humility thing because they
wanted to do things on theirown, and they just don't have enough
experience to realize thatthis could happen.
They needed to fail.
And I think that that's great.
And it again was a sign ofthem not being ready to be on their
own.
And I do think though, thatthis whole encounter being saved
by the humans being saved andhaving to save Autobots, I think
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it was actually humblingbecause I think that Shockwave taking
them over, it just wasn'tsomething they thought about.
And so Grimlock and crew hasthought about it.
They have an error in theirways and they acknowledge it, and
I think are humbled.
And I think that this directlyleads to a personality shift that
we're not going to see untilthe movie.
But I do think that this mightbe the first sign whether it's intentional
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or not, I don't know, justsomething that I think maybe could
be intentional.
And from now on, the Dinobotsare definitely seen more in a comedic
role.
And I think people probablyassociate them more with that than
they do what we've seen upuntil this point.
So the whole point of this twoparter is that the Autobots and Decepticons
on Earth are lacking Cybertonium.
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And so at the end of thisepisode, after all the things happen,
Carly and Spike end up savingthe Autobots from the Cybertonium
that they're missing.
But we don't know what happensto the Decepticons.
And I would assume thatShockwave was able to get them some
because they were mining it.
In this episode.
It's just a matter of theAutobots were not going to be able
to get it because of thisbarrier that Shockwave and the Decepticons
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provided.
It's just not explicitlyshown, but we know that they're obviously
going to get fixed.
And so the Autobots are ableto save their own lives, save their
own skins, and fight onanother day.
It's just assumed that theDecepticons were able to do that.
And speaking of theDecepticons, Shockwave was ready
for Spike and Carly.
And honestly, I like it thathe doesn't hesitate in vaporizing
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Carly's car when they get there.
I think I mentioned lastepisode, and I probably mentioned
it before, that Shockwave isthe gatekeeper, the caretaker for
Cybertron, for the Decepticons.
But every single time anAutobot comes through the space bridge,
they always manage to get through.
So it's nice to see that eventhough they did get through, he's
starting to not hesitate now.
And it is what it is, though.
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He doesn't have a good trackrecord with them getting away, and
they always seem to escape.
Whether it's humans, whetherit's robots, it doesn't matter.
But thankfully for him, notmany Autobots make it over the space
bridge successfully throughoutthe entirety of the season.
So maybe, just maybe, it's notenough to kill him.
And that's why Megatron keepshim alive.
But Shockwave doesn't realizeduring all of this that he can disobey
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Megatron in his disabled form,because, again, on Earth, all of
the robots are disabled.
And this speaks to the factthat Shockwave, much like Soundwave,
is an unreasonably loyal soldier.
He continues to do Megatron'sbidding by sending the Sentinels
after Spike and Carly.
And I have to think that hisunbridled loyalty comes out of something
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like fear, because Megatrondoesn't rule with grace.
He rules with fear.
And so Shockwave misses anopportunity to take over for himself.
And if it were Starscream inthis role, 100% Megatron would be
left for dead.
And Shockwave, in continuingwith this trend, he's always alone.
And I feel like Shockwave, forall of his loyalty, is set up to
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fail, and he's set up to failwhen it comes to protecting Cybertron.
Megatron, for some reason,doesn't give him enough.
He's doing this all by himself.
And despite the fact that hehas this planet at his disposal,
the planet is depleted of energy.
And so Shockwave in thisepisode is really the focus for the
Decepticons, and he justdoesn't do his job.
I don't know what that meansfor him, but I feel bad for him because
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he's loyal.
He tries to do everythingMegatron asks of him.
I think he's just set up to fail.
Decepticons took overCybertron, and so they branded everything
them.
But what's funny, and it'ssomething I think I've pointed out,
is that there's a colordifferentiation between Decepticon
headquarters and Autobotheadquarters, and that even exists
on Cybertron.
You see, like, dark grays,blacks, purple for Decepticons, which
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is what you saw outside of thelab with the Decepticon logo on it.
And when you walk in, you getthat gold color.
So obviously, the Decepticonshadn't been in the lab.
They just branded all thebuildings and maybe didn't know the
lab was there.
I don't know if that's a quirkor not.
It's just something that Imentioned and it could be, it couldn't
be.
So why not mention it here?
How did I feel overall aboutthis episode?
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I feel like the two partepisode does accomplish a lot in
the fact that maybe it doesn'tdo anything for character development,
but it does in terms ofCybertronian history adding depth
to the war and it gives depthto the Dinobots journey as they are
humbled through all of this failure.
And while we don't see themagain until basically the movie,
it still is nice to see.
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But I think the best part ofthis is getting a little bit more
Cybertronian history andhopefully that is a sign of things
to come.
If you've watched this episoderecently, I would love to know.
Instagram Nerjohnentries iswhat you can search.
You can also email memaddyicemedia.com with any comments
and questions.
There's a YouTube channel somake sure to search and subscribe
and all that stuff.
(12:16):
I'd love to hear from peoplewho listen on what kind of YouTube
content they may want.
Maybe you don't.
Maybe you're good with theaudio, but if you have some ideas,
have some content that youlike to see or hear my opinions on,
or my reviews of, let me knowand I will try to make that happen
for you.
Next time we're going to talkabout Blaster Blues, that's going
to be Our review, episode 21.
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I want to thank everybody for listening.
I hope this finds everybodywell, hope this finds everybody safe
and I'll talk to you next Review.
This is Energon entries.
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The opinions and viewpointsexpressed on Energon entries are
those of Matt Fraits and hisguests, and not necessarily those
of the Maddie Ice Media Network.
Energon entries is exclusivelyowned by Matt Frates and is brought
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