Transformers, Episode 75 - “Fight or Flee”
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008I was really bored about an hour ago, and I decided to watch an old episode of TRANSFORMERS. I thought that there was no way it could be as good as I remembered it being. Guess what: it is. It totally is. Here is the breakdown of one of my favourite episodes as a child, “Fight or Flee”, the best look we ever get at Sandstorm, who I loved because he could turn into three different things, as opposed to just two, which I had been used to at the time. Now that I look back as a twenty-two year old I wonder who I liked this pussy so much. Why didn’t I like Cyclonus? He is bad ass.
The episode starts out with Cyclonus and Scourge chasing Slingshot, who for no reason seems to be off gallivanting around the galaxy. He hides around a piece of floating rock, which suddenly becomes fucking enormous, and basically the size of a planet when considering how big the Transformers are.
That’s when the Aerialbots pop out and sand bag them. Typically a massive gunfight ensues where no one at all gets shot. Fortunately Cyclonus and Scourge find an inter-galaxy warp, inside which they find a planet populated by peaceful Transformers. Immediately, Cyclonus realises that the planet is populated by fucking pussies and there is officially a new mack in town. Also, there is an abundance of energon, you know, the thing that the entire series is based upon. So of course, he makes an inter-galactic call to Galvatron to come over and clean up.
Cyclonus tells Scourge to set his weapons to ’stun’, a feature that they have for no apparent reason whatsoever, since all they ever do is fuck people up. They rush the group of Paradronians who are discussing what to do about Cyclonus and Scourge, blowing Sandstorm (their de facto leader) away and seizing control. Some slope pipes up “but this is a democracy!” and then, suddenly due to my incredible hatred of democracy, I have no sympathy for when Cyclonus makes him “dance” like in those old westerns.
Even though these guys are intense pacifists, there is a fully-fledged prison block, presumably for people who forgot their table manners, or jay-walked. Anyway, Cyclonus, of course tosses Sandstorm’s ass in the clink, but fortunately there is a barred window in the cell, which while seemingly only the size of his head, is in fact the size of his entire fucking body, and the bars on it are easily destroyed by a handy little arm laser he happens to have. Neat!
He is detected escaping, so Razor Claw and a tank dude who I have no idea to his name are sent out to chase him down. Razor Claw jumps like several hundred thousand times faster than he runs, but for no apparent reason decides to run half the way. That way he gets to crack jokes I guess. Eventually Divebomb finds Sandstorm trying to escape in some huge rocket ship. So to kill him as fast as possible, he flies directly into the sky and then sweeps around to fly straight for him, when he could have just, you know, flown straight for him.
Hot Rod decides to heed Sandstorm’s rescue call. Kup of course doesn’t believe Sandstorm because he’s about a bazillion years old and he thinks he knows every fucking thing. Then Blur runs on screen and makes you want to slap him with your dick. You can’t of course, and that is a painful fact to swallow.
Of course, Galvatron, hero that he is puts all the autobots of Paradron to slave work, making missiles. Not that any of the Decepticons fucking use missiles, you understand. Just because he can. What else are they gonna make? Razor Claw shoots up the incoming Autobot ship with some intergalactic laser. Of course, it was just a decoy, since that’s pretty much the only move in the Autobot play book. Then, about fifty Autobots pop out from behind the meteor and no one notices a thing.
Sky Lynx flies overhead while the Autobots, which is basically Hot Rod and Springer destroy everyone. Sandstorm rouses the population of die hard pacifists to fight the Decepticons, whose sole existence has been to fuck people up. Let’s see who wins this fight.
Cut to Ultra Magnus who doesn’t realise he is walking into a trap, because why would he? He is a fucking galloot. Thankfully he has a secret radio mechanism in his chest, which I have never seen before, and he can call Hot Rod for help. That’s when Hot Rod hits him with his master plan: blow up the entire planet. Because that’s the other contingency in the Autobot playbook. His rationale? Because if the Decepticons get this planet, every other planet will be vulnerable. Really? How’s that? Why would they ever be more vulnerable than if the Decepticons didn’t have this planet of pacifist robots.
All the robots who were dull yellow are suddenly different colours. Nope now they’re dull yellow. Nope, now there are different colours. And we’re back to dull yellow.
Sandstorm (because he knows its location) and Ultra Magnus (for no reason) are sent to go and set a block of C4 on the planet’s energon source. God knows why Sandstorm needs a helicopter form, since he seems capable of flying in his dune buggy form. He tells Magnus to shut the fuck up for the first one hundred yards upon entering the building that houses the energon, but even that is not a command he is capable of adhering to. He of course drops some knowledge and then inexplicably grabs the rocket, throwing it at a bunch of Constructicons who happened to be chilling the back of the room, undisturbed by that rocket sentry.
Galvatron with a free shot of course misses the two of them and then is blinded by Magnus’ truck lights. Didn’t he learn anything from TRANSFORMERS the animated movie? And the robots are back to all being dull yellow.
The whole planet explodes, because, you know, no other choice. And apparently this is a satisfactory result, the end.