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Re: Transformers Prime Episode 8 -Con Job Discussion
Transformers: Prime Episode 8- "Con Job"
Huh... so Wheeljack's recast as a Drift-esque Wrecker, completely jettisoning the engineer/inventor persona. In some ways, he's closer to a homage to Energon Downshift than G1 Wheeljack. Still pretty awesome, all things considered, though I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that this would have been a *perfect* role for Springer to play. On the other hand, perfectly faithful tributes to G1 characters are starting to get a little old, what with Animated already being chock-full of 'em.
Waitatick... he didn't transform! Ever! I feel a little cheated by that. In-story, it makes sense that the guy wouldn't bother to scan a vehicle mode, but at least we could have seen his Cybertronian mode. I'm almost wondering if this was a cost-cutting measure-- sparing the animators the task of designing a TF sequence and vehicle mode for characters appearing in only one episode. I hope this doesn't mean he won't be getting a toy...
Speaking of probable non-toy characters, I'm not holding my breath for a Makeshift toy haunting the pegs any time soon. I was *so* jonesing for a fully lit look at his neutral robot mode (thinking he would have shifted back once his cover was blown, but no such luck). Hard to tell, but I *think* he might have just been a Roadster drone with a few more spiky bits adorning his body. Would have been neat if the 'Cons forces were bolstered with a permanent new cast member, but the nature of his ability makes him seem like a pretty blatant one-shot plot device dude... plus, it would appear he was blown to smithereens (Yeesh... these 'Bots really do have that Bayverse Autobot bloodthirstiness. Stapling a thermal bomb to a guy's pelvis... tha's sum cold slag right there.)
Alright already with giving a pair of katanas to every "teh awesome" character that comes down the turnpike! It's still *just* novel enough to have been cool in this case, but they are really pushing it.
I like how they got the Darkmount reference in there, *and* prominently featured an anecdote about its smelting pit. I'd like to think that was a little damage control on Hasbro's part to ameliorate any confusion that was caused by the legal woes of the Straxus toy (yeah, they did mentioned that he was named after his tower in the bio, but there's nothing wrong with driving the point home).
It's a little strange that there was absolutely no mention of the fact that Megatron is presumably recovering somewhere in the 'Con space cruiser and Starscream just carries on claiming he's the leader. I mean, yeah, that's exactly what he *would* do, but Soundwave perhaps giving a status update on Megs' conditioning to stick it to him might've been a good callback, especially since the 'Cons weren't featured at all last ep. I do, however, like that the running gag of no one, not even a Johnny-come-lately like Wheeljack, can even begin to take Screamer seriously as leader.
The dancing was unfortunate. Raf doing the robot I could almost give a pass to, but Mr. Darby was totally doing the Elaine Benes "Little Kicks" routine...
Prime "taking a drive" while the other Autobots are celebrating was pretty killer. Reminds me more of Rodimus blowing off steam in "Burden Hardest to Bear" than G1 Optimus (who, of course, spent his downtime on the basketball court), but that ain't a bad thing, by any means. TF:P Prime certainly has a bit more of Roddy's penchant for brooding.
Not quite as jazzed about this ep as I was expecting to be, but Wheeljack as a badass may grow on me (he *did* have that mostly unexplored character trait of being a stunt driver, whoch is pretty bad-ass so you could argue that this is just focusing on facets of the archetype that were previously untapped). It's more the bait-and-switch of introducing characters that don't join the core cast that's starting to grate on me. Imagine what Beast Wars would have been like if everything that came out of a stasis pod got slagged or ran off into the jungle before the intro ep ended.
J
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