Nature's Calling, Megatron Rising 2 Parter

Hey, it's David Kaye, voice of Beast Wars Megatron

and TFA Optimus. You're listening to the Geekcast

Radio Network. My name is Optimus Prime, and

this episode of Transformation Animation Podcast

features Stephen C. Phillips, Mike Blanchard,

and Michael Wilson. Where these infernal setbacks

never end, the revolution begins now. Did you

just put the microphone to your ass? What was

that? All right, I'm going on mute, so you can

begin. Welcome to episode 5 of Transformation

Animation Podcast. I am one of your hosts, Steve,

your own Mike, and joining me is Steve Megatron.

Hello. Hello, hello, hello. And Peacon Court

Michael. Hello. Hey, how's it going? It's going.

Good. Yes, we are here with episode 5. Steve,

what have you been up to? Working on just random

voice crap at this point and playing Diablo 2

to kill time. Cool. Michael, what's going on

in the House of Wilson? Not a whole lot. I actually

found a Sergeant Cup. I was very excited about

that because I didn't think I was going to find

any of the last of the generations line, but

I did find him, and I was kind of happy about

that. I also got my Transformer Collectors Club

sideburn in the mail, and that was exciting.

Yeah, because he's kind of like a blue repaint.

of Classics Rodimus. Yeah, he looks really cool.

I always like these figures because they don't

skimp on the paint job, unlike Hasbro. Yeah,

there's a lot of little flourishes on him. Just

really, really sharp. I was seeing a bunch of

pictures on Flickr and another side of TwitPic

and things like that of people posting pictures

of him. And I was like... Where's mine? Everybody

is like, oh my god, the TCC has sent stuff out.

When are they going to show up? Oh my god, this

person has it, but this person doesn't. This

person got theirs, but that person didn't get

theirs yet. I don't know if it's love for the

character of Sideburn, or if it's just that they

wanted a Blue Rodimus. I just don't. get it it's

like it's kind of like you dipped him in the

blue lagoon or something like that and it's like

holy crap this figure is oh you know a holy grail

for people it's like what the fuck yeah no this

this is a an homage to a robots in disguise character

right you never watch robots in disguise yeah

I mean, if you don't watch Robots in Disguise,

you're not going to catch the homage. They actually

did do a red repaint of this character and called

it Super Sideburn. I think that's his actual

name. Super Sideburn looked a lot like Rodimus

Prime, and it was a big homage to G1 Rodimus.

Right, yeah. No, I understand that it's an homage

to the character from R .I .D. and all this and

all that, but it's like... Hey guys, it's just

a blue Rodimus with a different paint scheme

on the head. But, but it's like, everybody's

like, like scrambling, like grabby hands. Gimme,

gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme. It's like, well,

I think, yeah, I think it's basically like this

guy got it. Why didn't I get it? And you're literally

at the mercy of the postal system. Yeah, let's

not get into a great debate about that. Yeah.

So, I think it was last episode that we had the...

Was it episode four or episode three where they

were in the construct the... Oh, no, it was last...

Fuck, I don't remember. When they were in the

abandoned plant, the meltdown episode. Okay.

On Dinobot Island, the abandoned research facility

or whatever else. Yeah, it was the last episode.

The way I explain the fact that the toilet has

a keyhole is because that every single thing

in or around the Detroit area in the last 50

years in this universe was happened or built

because some deck reverse engineered Megatron's

technology. So it's Cybertronian technology.

One of our friends and fans on Twitter, Salem

Blood, she was going to call in a voicemail,

but at the time the voicemail line was kaput.

It is back up now, 502 -526 -5821. But she made

a response to why she thinks that the toilet

had a keyhole. She says, first of all, consider

where this particular toilet is. Fanzone said

it's in an abandoned research facility and Meltdown

would most likely be working in the biological

department of the labs. therein in some cases

research scientists would be collecting urine

and feces from the test subjects so would need

to lock the toilet's ability to flush so the

test subject does not accidentally lose the needed

research material after such a toilet is then

unlocked to dispose of any waste not needed for

testing in normal use um holy crap wow yeah i

i i salem i'm sorry that is Just so off the wall,

I cannot believe it. It's genius. That is brilliant.

It's so true. I can't imagine why I didn't think

of that. Well, it's kind of true, but again,

as I said in episode four, it more so goes to

the fact that it's a Cybertronian toilet. It's

not even a real, it's not, you know, it's not

a toilet. You can get it Bed, Bath, and Beyond.

or Home Depot. I wouldn't call it a Cybertronian

toilet because it's not big enough for Optimus

Prime to have his ass on. I've got my own theories

about what that is. The reason why I say it's

a Cybertronian toilet is because it's a piece

of Cybertron tech and the only key that fits

that thing is Sari's key. So that's, I don't

know. Steve, what are your theories? Are you

sure you want to hear my theories? Might as well.

We've already gone down the hole this episode

already, so. Well, one reason is, well, maybe

it's used to, you know, you get to take crap,

use the key, you flush. Sorry, it goes down the

hole. Down the hole. Sorry, you go down the hole.

The other one is to remove. shitty episodes from

the lineup. Because, you know, they literally

hit the can. We don't see Professor Princess

for a while, so maybe that's where she went.

But the other thing is, well, you know, that's

their thought process for some of the episodes

prior and coming from this episode on. They get

their ideas from the crapper. I do my best thinking

on the crapper. They turn the key, and out comes

some crap. Jiggle the handle. Let's see what

comes out. Yeah, that's all I got, though. All

right, so we're going to get into some episodes.

Wow, this has been a train wreck of an intro.

Eight minutes and 23 seconds of pure gold. We're

digging for gold. Up your ass, you gold. That's

just so awful. Oh, I'm not even sitting down

anymore. Okay, we just have to go back to town

and get Prime and Ratchet. They'll know how to

fix Prowl. And the best part? We finally get

out of this stupid nature. But won't Prowl follow

us and spread space barnacles all over Detroit?

It's not fair. Why do you have to be so right

all the time? All right, let's get this show

on the road. What road? The low road. The low

road. The low road. Best episode in Beast Wars,

the low road. Bitch slap you. All right, shut

up. Shut up. Shut up. First up today is Nature

Calls. Prowl is frustrated by humans plowing

snow and the fact that neither Bumblebee nor

Sari seem to care. Optimus Prime discovers a

non -sentient Cybertronian energy signal. And

Sari, Prowl, and Bumblebee set off to investigate.

Sari attempts to teach Bumblebee the fine rustic

art of camping, but he is not the least bit interested

in roughing it. Their semi -peaceful vacation

is soon disrupted when they have run in with

a parasitic space barnacles that have apparently

taken over the Cybertronian body of their thought

-to -have -been deceased enemy Megatron, and

end up taking over Prowl and Bumblebee. Sarah

uses hot water to destroy the space barnacles.

Her Autobot friends are rescued, but Isaac Sumdack

finds the body and takes it back to his lab to

rebuild it. Now, it is never, and again, these

synopsis that I have are from Wikipedia .org,

it is never actually said in the episode that

the space barnacle thing, monster thing, was

Megatron's body. They kind of come close at the

end at hinting, because... Well, you have to

take a big leap, because first of all, you've

got this... Basically, it's a robot covered in

barnacles as a monster with spike hands or pickaxe

hands. And then at the end, some deck finds a

big pile of something with a Decepticon logo

on it. So it's like, well, is that Megatron's

body? I mean, at this point, it could possibly

be Lugnut's body or Blitzwing's body, because

they were blown up and... Starscream found them,

but we never really found out what happened to

their bodies. Well, it couldn't be Lugnut because

it was gray with a purple Decepticon symbol on

it, so... Right. Well, it's not actually until

the next episode where he says, Look what I found!

And pulls the sheet off it. Yeah. He says, Huzzah!

Yeah. Did you guys see the actual real human

spark plug in the very beginning? Yes. Yeah.

That was great. Yeah, I like the G1 construction

worker outfit. I mean, that's iconic. And I dig

it that this is like the second, maybe the third

time they've brought that back now. But I also

liked the mining robots in the mine with the

spark plug. Because they're Constructicon green

and purple. Yep. And my first thought was, oh,

my God, is it going to be Constructicons? See,

that's the thing. I hadn't seen this episode

in so long since my very first watch through

of the series. That's what I thought, too. And

then I realized, oh, wait, that doesn't happen

until much later in the series as far as the

Constructicons. At least the Constructicons look

like construction equipment, whereas these just

look like boxes with pickaxes on the end. Yeah.

I guess there's a first time for everything.

This is the first time and the probably only

time I can sympathize with Bumblebee. And I am

so not a fan of camping. I just... Every time

I ever went camping as a kid, it always turned

into a nightmare just because... I solved that

problem by not going camping. Exactly. Well,

when your parents, you know, as kids, when your

parents sign you up for summer camp, you kind

of have to. Oh. You know. Yeah. Whatever happened

to me. I went camping once. I think I was 21

the first time I went camping. And, you know,

I didn't bring sunscreen. I just didn't know

how to camp. And I ended up with, like, second

and third degree burns from sitting out at the

beach. Yeah. It was really, really bad. And,

you know, I'm pale -skinned anyway. It just didn't

turn out very well for me. You must learn to

survive without the aid of machines. You never

know when you won't have them. This is such a

scary thought in this day and age. No, seriously,

think about this. In a world where machines are

no longer existent, you are alone. Seriously,

this is almost a discussion point for a Geekcast

Radio episode because if you really think about

this, that line is so true because we have computers,

we have iPads, we have iPhones, we have iPods,

we have Blackberries, we have other touchpad

stuff, the internet. Where would we be right

now if we didn't have any of this stuff? We'd

all be going stir crazy. Yeah, no, the decline

of civilization will start when the power ends.

The Stone Age. Exactly, when they shut down the

power grid and we no longer have refrigeration,

entertainment, well, modern entertainment, let's

say. You know, we can no longer drive our cars

or fly our planes. But we can still kick a can.

That's it. Exactly. That's about all we can do.

We can kick a can down the street and pray that...

road warrior -esque bikers don't drive up and

slaughter us. I love how Sari wants to get in

on the action facing the barnacle monster by

making a fucking snowball. Because there's that

action pose of Bumblebee Prowl and then two seconds

later Sari comes in. She's in this action pose

but she's got a snowball in her hand. You can

do a lot of damage with a snowball if you aim

it right. It's like, ow, that had ice in it.

Ow, ow. That's not a snowball. That's a slush

ball. There's a big difference. Ow. Ow. Stop

it. I love how Jeff Bennett does the inflections

for Prowl when he's calm and when he's really

pissed because the first part he goes to Bumblebee,

do you mind? And Bumblebee's like, what? I didn't

do any. thing and then later and then like two

seconds later prowl gets hit by snow and we've

seen this sorry has a snowball and as soon as

he says the first do you mind he turns around

like do you mind do you mind yeah what that was

me the giant barnacle monster over your head

why are you looking at me like that And sorry,

again with her comedy in this. That's right,

Barnacle Boy. Come get some nice, tasty Autobot.

Oh, God. So hilarious. Okay. No, it was funny.

You're so easily amused, you know. Well, it's

funny because later then she has the line of,

you know, bath time kids. And I'm just wondering,

I'm just wondering if Tara ever uses any kind

of voice like that with her own children. Probably.

I know when she said that, my kids both went,

Did they? They did. Well, we were all watching

it together, and she's like, bad time, kids.

And Aiden's like, no! Good times. I just don't.

I understand why they put this episode in here.

Basically, the only reason why it's here is to

get across the message of, oh, we need, you know,

it's more of the message of technology and nature

working together, you know, that trans -tech

type of crap. Well, this is basically a Prowl

story. Prowl has been bitching and whining about

nature for the last several episodes, and this

is finally where it hits home. Secondly, this

episode is where they find Megatron's body. Well,

that's what I was going to say. There's only

two reasons for this episode to exist. The nature

versus technology thing and the fact that they

finally found the rest of Megatron's body. I

mean, other than that, this episode is completely

useless, I think. Agreed. Do you have any notes

for it, Steve, for nature calls? I think the

whole barnacle thing is retarded. No. Was the

space barnacles, is that some sort of homage

or some sort of like, are space barnacles kind

of like rock lords where it's like, oh my god,

the super homage of this super fandom thing,

is that, or is it just that, oh, these are just

space barnacles? I don't know what the hell a

rock lord is, so that's... I know what a rock

lord is, a he -man thing. Yeah, it doesn't make

any sense, Rock Lord. I think they were pulling

from the Japanese tentacle porn of the Kiss Play.

Oh, God. There were actually tentacles involved

here. I know. And they grew up the robots and

created new robots out of rocks. That's right.

They became Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots. I think

Bumblebee brought along some soda, and it was

grape. It was actually labeled Tentacle Grape.

Oh, my God. I did not catch that. I'm kidding.

It was not true. Oh, thank God. I'm just messing

with you. Yeah, don't do that again. There is

such a thing as a tentacle grape soda, though.

You can get it on Japanese websites. Oh, my God.

And eBay for $49 .95. That's ridiculous. I don't

know how much it costs. You can get it by the

case. It tastes like grape. Or the leader. It's

very purple. Anything else for Nature Calls,

Steve? I pretty much agree with you other than

Megatron's lifeless shell being in this episode

and trying to show dependence and needing machines

and all that crap. Yeah, it's a pretty useless

episode other than that. But I do like how they

did show Sparkplug. Yeah, that was pretty cool.

What about you, Michael? What do you got for

nature calls? Oh, I was just going to say spark

plug being eaten by tentacles. That was the last

we saw of spark plug. I like the irony of Prowl's

fixation on nature. The whole time he's like,

you have to get away from machines, and he is

a machine. Bumblebee so much as points that out.

He's like, you do realize that you're a machine

too. Bumblebee not only points that out, but

Bumblebee tries to use it to his advantage to

get his media player going. I thought that was

hilarious. Yeah, and then he crushes his media

player. See, I think toward the end of this episode,

it tried dipping into like a horror story, you

know, like the zombies. The real horror here

is losing your DVD player. To me, that's just

really scary. I don't think I'd want to be in

that situation. No more movies! No! Well, it

starts off, you know, you've got Bumblebee and

Sari playing the video games. And you'd think

that in the future they'd have huge screens,

but no, they've got this little tiny little 14

-inch screen on top of an Xbox or something.

Just goes to show you that our technology is

still superior than the future. Well, the other

thing about that, since you bring that up, Michael,

about them not having a huge TV, You got to think,

Shari's what, eight, nine -year -old little girl?

Yes, her father has all this money and all this

technology at his plant, but it would look kind

of weird, the Autobots going to some dark tower

and having, you know, Bulkhead or Bumblebee or

anybody carry away, you know, like a 70 -inch

flat panel TV. Bigger than that. I mean, you

know, it would look really weird. If you look

at another Wyatt. you know related show teen

titans when you go to the t the t -shaped tower

i forget what they call like teen titans tower

or something yeah the yeah the titans the titan

tower uh when you go in there what's the first

thing you see uh robin and beast boy doing every

episode they're playing video games on this you

know 50 foot long screen yeah so yeah i mean

i'm thinking if i was 40 foot tall wouldn't i

want a 50 foot You know, wide television? I mean,

they could use it for other things rather than

just playing video games, but still. That would

be the first on my to -do list. You know, it's

like, cleaning up the floor? No. Cleaning up

the surrounding area? No. Fixing the windows?

No. Getting a giant TV is my priority here. And

you as much said that in one of your blog posts.

That's right. I back this up with experience,

that's true. I like when Sari is like, camping

trip! She's all excited. She's never been camping.

Not once. It's like, you realize you're going

to be out there, even without giant barnacle

monsters. Camping is a fight for your life. It's

easy to... stand your ground against nature when

you live in a house when you've got food in the

fridge and there's you know the hot and cold

running water you go out there in the forest

and you're no longer top of the food chain no

it's just like you know so i can kind of understand

bumblebee wanting to take all the stuff with

him but I think it's funny because he brings

too much stuff. I was like, where did you even

fit all of that? A place you don't want to know

about. I'd rather not talk about it. Yeah, he

brings a new meaning to the term junk in the

trunk. Because he puts it in his ass. He says,

it's in my ass. Sit down and rotate. Exactly.

He's like, don't take my DVD player. Why not?

You don't want to know where it's been. I'll

make it so you never want that bastard ever again.

I know. I just stuck it out of your back so I

can watch TV. Don't touch it. It's been in my

exhaust port. And that's what I was talking about.

Not just at the plant, but even out in the woods.

Again, Bumblebee points out to Prowl, you are

a machine, and he tries using him again as a

projector. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But, you know,

who goes camping in the winter in Detroit? It's

got to be cold. Yeah, that's a little weird.

And you know it's cold because there's snow on

the ground. Well, that's true, but... Let's not

forget why they were out there in the first place

to find this signal. But still, I wish they would

have made it more about finding the signal rather

than, oh, hey, camping trip, yay. Well, why not

go camping while you're out there in the middle

of nowhere in the middle of winter? And they

want to go camping, and they get out there, and

what do they find? Space herpes. Brought by Megatron.

completely coding megatron so uh yeah space barnacles

that are mutated by dark energon uh see how i'm

pulling this all together here yeah yeah well

it's not really dark energon just no i i saw

it i just but i saw it it'll show you his energon

cave So is that... Speaking of the cave and Bumblebee's

genius of locking them in there with Space Barnacle

Prowl, that cave actually will come back later

because that's the same... Well, yeah. We'll

see that location again. We do? Alright, I forget

exactly where that cave could be. I'll remember

later. Yeah, you'll remember later. Yeah. Anything

else on nature calls? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, speaking

of that cave, that's what really shocked me,

is that the solution here is for them to go back

to the mine where the scary monster lives. Because,

you know, they don't know that the scary monster

hasn't come back yet. It's almost like, let's

all split up and wander out into the dark and

wait for the killer to catch us. And... It was

Professor Plum in the cave with an Energon Herpy.

Energon Herpy. Yeah, but no, I like the whole

zombie out thing. The zombie take. Prowl gets

zombified first, and then he takes a swing at

Bumblebee, and he's like, too slow! But he's

not. He actually zombifies him. Zombie Bumblebee.

I like this idea. I mean, they're not really

dead. They're not really zombies, you know, but

they're, they have the arms up. They're like,

you know, they're, they're more like rage virus

victims. Like, I guess would be the word. Yeah.

Like hybrids. Hybrid. I like hybrid hate plaguers.

Hi. Hi. Yeah. That, that too. I like, uh, when

he says, why is water coming out of the fire

hose? I had to go. Well, he gets the fire hose

and he's like, alright, watch out! He shoots

water and he's like, why isn't there fire coming

out of the fire hose? Oh, right. Well, it all

leads back to things being improperly labeled.

If you're in a grocery store and you see a jar

that says baby food, clearly it's a jar of food

made out of babies, right? Well, it's like it's

fat -free. It comes with fat for free. Okay,

keep going. We're a very imaginative bunch of

Americans. Exactly. I got a whole bottle of applesauce

here. It says apple right on the front. I have

a whole bottle of baby food here. It has a baby

right on the front. Okay, stop. Back to the episode.

Alright, so they can't get fire to come out of

the fire hose, but they do get it to produce

steam. And they do this. How do they do this?

Sorry, swings her key at the fireplace. Now,

we just got off a discussion on why is there

a keyhole in a toilet, but there's no keyhole

in the mine. No, it is there. It doesn't work,

though. It is there. When she first goes into

the room and she goes over to that control panel,

a keyhole does show up, but it won't work. Because

the mine systems are shut down. And then she

sees the fireplace. She goes over to the fireplace.

And why that there's a hot coil in the fireplace

or oven or whatever it's supposed to be. Yeah.

You know, she starts striking her key against

the hot coil. Kind of like, you know, striking

a match to, you know, a piece of wood. At the

end of the camping episode, she finally learns

how to make fire. Yeah. Fire good. She makes

fire, that in turn makes steam, and the steam

kills the barnacles. And they're all like, it's

a sauna in here! But yeah, at the very end, behold,

the monster was actually Megatron's body, and

it was brought back to life with the nasty zombie

space barnacles. So I mean, it all comes together

at the end, and it makes perfect sense, but the

main goal of the episode was to get Megatron's

body back. without having to resort to Destronium

or stealing a body from Soundwave or something.

All good plans, but getting your original body

back is probably the best plan of all. Yes, and

there will be much more tentacles when that happens.

Those are so creepy. We'll talk about that in

the next episode. So are we done with nature

calls? Yeah, that covers it. Alright, we are

moving on. I am ready to serve as your ever -faithful

second -in -command. Ah, Starscream. How fitting

to have you by my side as I finally take my revenge

on the one responsible for my 50 stellar cycles

of helplessness and humiliation. Does anyone

else have a problem with my leadership? No, fine.

Never! Now where was I? Huh? After them! And

finally up today is the Megatron Rising two -parter.

In the first part, we have Starscream, Blitzwing,

and Lugnut begin their attack upon Earth. Optimus

Prime demands that Sari hand over her key to

the Autobots. She refuses, and Ratchet uses his

magnets to forcefully take it from her. This

causes her to run away, only for her to end up

captured by Black Arachnia. Optimus begins to

doubt his leadership while Megatron begins his

next stage to have his body rebuilt and orders

Lugnut and Blitzwing to steal the key from the

Autobots. They succeed in doing this. Starscream,

when scanning Lugnut, learns that at last Megatron

is really alive. After thinking a little, he

decides to join up with his former leader until

the next good opportunity to get rid of Megatron

presents itself. So Starscream arrives to the

Sundack Tower. where Megatron's head is placed

and is trying to convince him of his loyalty,

but he doesn't suspect that Megatron already

knows about his treachery. At the end of the

episode, Optimus watches in horror as Megatron

rises into the sky, his body having been fully

rebuilt by Isaac Sumdack and the key. Well, these

infernal setbacks never end. I like that. Megatron's

head is just about to lose it. He's just like,

you know what? I am running out of patience with

you. I'm going to bite your fucking head off.

It was just funny that he completely just freaks

out on some deck at the last second. I like Starscream's

line. because Lugnut keeps saying, oh no, it's

Megatron. Megatron's in my head, blah, blah,

blah. So I'm like, Megatron? Did you just say

Megatron? Did he just say Megatron? There is

no Megatron. Megatron is offline. Terminated.

I did it myself. I saw it myself. I got the impression

that he was, I don't want to say backpedaling,

but the fact that he doesn't really want to admit

that He killed Megatron. He doesn't want to say,

I did it myself, because then Lugna's probably

going to execute it right there on the spot.

Yeah. So Bumblebee is getting tons of character

development. But watch, they'll take it away

soon enough. This two -parter, I so... found

Bumblebee to be much more appealing than the

entire rest of the season is that just because

you feel sorry for him that he gets his ass handed

to him by Starscream no it's just He's not being

a dick. Optimus Prime is the one that's being

a dick in this episode. I mean, Bumblebee's pointing

out to him, you know, they are just maintenance

bots and this, that, and the other thing. And

even though Optimus has had the elite guard training

and all this and all that, he's not making good

decisions throughout this entire episode. I don't

know if anyone else will pick up on this, and

I'm sure that people will get the reference when

they hear the quotes that I put in the episode,

but I love Prime's line of, it appears the Decepticons

are mobilizing for a full -scale assault. And

silence, because neither one of you guys get

it. In the beginning of Transformers the movie,

Ironhide, we don't have enough Energon cubes

to power a full -scale assault. Yeah. Okay. And

when David Kaye's Optimus says this line about

the Decepticons mobilizing for a full -scale

assault, it sounds similar to what Optimus said

in G1, is the whole point. I'm not sure if I

buy that. You can listen to it in the episode

later. Okay. Starscream finds Megatron and he

can't mask joyous emotions at all. What is it

that Megatron says? I can see the joy in your

face. I see the delight written all over your

face. Yeah. Lugnut is a Wayne's World groupie.

Master, I am not worthy. I am not worthy. You

know, it's funny because you brought that up,

the Wayne's World reference, and I didn't get

it. It went right over my head. So I'm kind of

glad that you spelled it out for me there. It

makes much more sense now. Oh, you're talking

about on Twitter when I made the teaser about

Lugnut. Yeah. Yeah, right over my head. I did

not catch that at all. Sorry. Sumdak feels sorry

for himself, but hello, he has seen an Autobot

symbol before, and he saw the Decepticon symbol

on Megatron's old body. How dumb are you, dude?

The giant Decepticon symbol on Soundwave? You

didn't notice that? I know. Well, he is a scientist.

He doesn't actually pay attention to things.

I would have much rather have had Beakman in

place of Sumdack in this instance. I love this

show. With the giant rat. Oh, that was a great

show. And at the end, Optimus is like, no, it

can't be. Uh -oh. New Megatron. Steve, what did

you have for the first part of the episode? Well,

the first part, I like the cybernetic Megatron

image. Yeah. That's so reminiscent of Beast Machines,

it's not even funny. Yeah. But it's a damaged

one. It's a damaged model, though, which is even

better because it shows that, oh, Mighty Megatron,

even in cybernetic state, is still fucked up.

You're talking about when the key overtakes him,

right? Yes. Yeah, he's talking about when...

The blue lines? Yeah. Yes. I do like his royally

screwed -up -looking body, though, and missing

the head and arms. That does rule. When I saw

it, though, I thought that was more of an homage

to the 1986 movie, when Megatron gets reformatted

into Galvatron. I could see that, too, but at

the same time, it's almost... It's kind of more

of both. Okay. No, yeah, no, I mean, I agree.

I just saw it as a really cool image. And, of

course, it's more so, I would almost have to

agree with Michael, because it's more so recharging

him. And, yes, it is reformatting him into a

new body, but just that image of his head still

in its same position, but it's getting recharged.

It was cool. Put back together. And as it was

happening... There was that classic G1 transformation

sound. Yep. Yeah, I like that. I like the shot

of his eyeball. His left eye, when the pieces

start coming over his eyeball, and you can actually

see the eyeball being rebuilt. Not the eyeball

itself, but the eyelid, the area around the eyeball.

The musculature around the eye reformats, and

he looks pissed. Yeah. It's just like, I have

an eye, and this is my angry eye. Grrr. I'm going

to put the eye on you. The evil eye. Yeah, but

that was an epic scene. Oh, yeah, it was. What

else you got for part one, Steve? I love the

final reveal of his new body. Oh, when he bursts

out of the roof? When he's got his new helicopter

mode and he's... No, that's in Part 2. Or his

robot mode, I mean. Yeah. You only barely see

the robot mode in Part 1. You see it up in the

sky. You don't really see a close -up of it,

but you obviously know it's Megatron. I like

that so much better than his Cybertronian form.

Yeah. The Cybertronian form was okay. I don't

really care for the... It looked too movie -esque.

This looks badass. No, it does look badass. I

do like... I almost wish animated would have

come slightly before the movie and then the movie

would have copied animated because I like the

Cybertronian Megatron head in animated way better

than any of the Megatron head designs in the

movies. Yeah, I mean, you know my take on the

movie Megatrons. I don't like any of them. No,

I don't either. Actually, I think the one on

the third movie is a little more forgiving because

he looks... Well, first of all, he's a Mack truck

and he kind of looks like he could transform

into a Mack truck. But when you look at his face,

it's still crumpled tinfoil. Yeah. He just doesn't

look right. Not to me. I also like the line Starscream

says, Who interrupts my speech? Which is like,

who disrupts my coronation? Yeah. Yeah, you interrupted

my speech. And see, I knew this, and again, for

right now, Kevin, you're either going to have

to stop the show or you're going to have to fast

forward, because I am going to be putting in

spoilers right now. So I'm telling you right

now, dude, stop listening. Don't spoil it. Well,

no, I'm not going to spoil too much, but... This

whole thing of Starscream coming back, Megatron

getting his body, and all this and all that,

and I'll bring it up later, but when Megatron

finally found out who actually betrayed him and

Megatron punches said person, Megatron has a

certain artifact in his hand when he punches

that person. And that's how that person got his...

No, that's not how he got his power. Yes, that

is. Anyway. Anyway, we can't call you for this.

His forehead doesn't... Anyway. That's not how

he got his power, I don't think. All right. Steve,

anything else from part one? I believe he stabbed

his own forehead. Thank you very much. That's

besides the fact. No, that's all I got. I don't

remember. Michael, part one. Yeah, starting off

with how Prime manages to piss everybody off.

Yeah. I mean, he's just not very nice to anybody

here. Optimus Prime in this entire two -parter

up until the very end is even more douche. He

has more douchebaggeriness to him than Rodimus

ever did in G1. Douchebaggery. Well, you know,

I understand he's stressed out. He's under a

lot of pressure here. And couple that with the

fact that he just finds out that Prowl and Bulkhead

lied. about the Dinobots. He had no idea the

Dinobots were still around, and he's like, oh

my god, this is all on top of my head, I'm gonna

be a giant dick here. Or a dying dick, as I was

about to say. Speaking dyslexically. So, everyone's

pissed off, everybody goes their separate ways,

sometimes against orders, and who shows up? Blackarachnia.

So now we have two girls commiserating over being

let down by Optimus Prime. It's like, yeah, that

Optimus sure is a dick. He left me behind, and

now I look ugly. Look at me. Oh, ugly. And Sari's

pissed off because Optimus Prime took her key

away. And honestly, eight -year -old girls should

not be carrying around Cybertronian artifacts,

especially not the way she's been using it for

the last dozen odd episodes. But, you know, would

it hurt so bad? To give Blackarachnia her robot

body back. Is it such an awful thing to actually

just take her to the Allspark and have the Allspark

heal her? Because you know the Allspark could

heal her if it was in its finished state. It

probably could, but they've specifically said

before that without her organic half, her robot

body can't survive. It's because that she...

that she is a direct homage to Beast Wars. It's

kind of like, oh, hey, we're on this strange

planet with all these energon deposits. We need

to create beast forms or some alternate form

to protect our robot bodies. It's the same thing

here. Because she has two halves to herself,

one can't survive without the other. See, I don't

know if I can buy that, because even Beast Machine's

Megatron was able to rid himself of his... organic

half eventually true i mean not without having

to destroy himself first well yeah that too but

you know we've already seen that the key can

revive dead cybertronians or dead autobots you

know in the case of optimus yeah in the original

movie but why why couldn't the the source of

the key right why couldn't the all spark remove

her organic half, which may kill her, but then

revive her right back again. I mean, I believe

it could work. I just don't see the point in,

you know. Or I have an idea. Use protoforms and

take her spark and move it. You know, it's funny,

too, because this is a series where they actually

bring up that exact subject. It's much later

with Jazz and Yokotron. Spoilers! But, yeah,

you can do that. You can take someone's spark

out and put it in a protoform. You know, they

don't have any protoforms handy while they're

stranded on Earth, but, you know, they do have

the most powerful Cybertronian artifact in the

known universe. I don't know. I think we just

had an episode, a camping episode, you know,

about how bad it sucks to be part robot and part

organic. You're a zombie. Space barnacle, you

know. I mean, granted, Black Arachne is not a

zombie. But still, she's just grievously unhappy

with her life. And honestly, if she could be

cured, she might, maybe possibly, end up going

to the good side. And isn't that worth giving

her a little face time with the AllSpark? I think

it is. She might go to the light side of Optimus

Prime shorts. Oh my god. Not the skidded side.

No, that's where Sentinel goes. Ah! She can't

go to the other side because that's where they

keep Old Yeller. Oh wow. Where's my Magnus hammer?

We're not going to talk about Optimus Prime's

underpants. What do you think about Ratchet's

arm? You guys both completely glossed over Ratchet's

arm. I about shit myself. I was like... Just

tore off his arm. Deleted. I really wanted him

to be in more pain. When he gripped his arm off,

Ratchet kind of went... And I'm thinking, yeah,

that should hurt. He just tore off your arm.

You know, I mean, I think if my arm got torn

off, I'd be in blinding pain up until the point

where I bled out. But they're robots. I suppose.

You know, I might buy that. Their pain receptors

aren't the same as ours. Otherwise, we'd be fucked.

Yeah, this will come up later when we get to

part two, because I have a note about this, and

Kevin will talk about this in his Sarvatorian

correspondence. Oh, yes. Yeah. But they bring

in the Dinobots. And it seems like they're trying

to touch all the bases. They're trying to touch

on everything they've done in this season before

they wrap it up. And it's going to come up later

in my discussion. But they bring in the Dinobots.

Hey, the gang's all here. Now we can move on

and really round things out properly. Bumblebee,

and this is classic irony for you, Bumblebee

shows up and buys Megatron just enough time to

rebuild himself before Starscream can kill him.

Because you know Starscream wants to just blow

up his head so bad he can taste it. And instead,

he gets sidetracked and chases after Bumblebee.

Not knowing that the key is on its way to completely

revive Megatron. He thinks he's got all the time

in the world. He's just going to do some Bumblebee

juggling. which was awesome. So he's going to

do some Bumblebee juggling and get rid of the

little yellow guy and then head down and off

Megatron. You get a twofer. But he doesn't. He

dicks around and Megatron ends up revived. If

only Starscream had tossed Bumblebee in Megatron's

head as soon as he entered. Yeah. It couldn't

have been cued better. He said, anybody could

just walk right in and kill you. And then, yeah.

And then boom and walks bumblebee. It starts

firing. And that's, and that's when the whole

thing of you interrupted my speech. You know,

if he had been less worried about pontificating,

you know, and more worried about killing off

Megatron, he could have just stepped out of the

way. And, you know, the stinger blast would have

went right past him and hit Megatron in the head.

And that would have been it. Problem solved.

But no, he was more worried about monologuing.

Game. Yeah. It's like, anyone could come in here

and kill you. Oh, like this little guy here,

you know? Would have been easy. But yeah, he

dicked around and lost his opportunity. Yep.

But that's about what I got. Alright, so we are

going to move on to part two of Megatron Rising,

and now that Megatron's body is rebuilt, designed

to blend in on Earth, Optimus Prime, Prowl, and

Bulkhead battle valiantly against him only to

get brutally beaten. Megatron destroys Starscream's

life spark by Sari's ki, so punishing him for

his betrayal. Meanwhile, Ratchet reuses Sari,

rescues, not reuses, rescues, sorry. Sarian drives

Black Ragney away. The battle between Optimus

and Megatron leads them back to the Autobot ship

and Megatron gets his hands on the AllSpark.

Then Optimus Prime uses Sari's key to tackle

Megatron, destroys the AllSpark, and causes Megatron

some serious damage. Optimus returns the key

to Sari for safekeeping and tells her that the

key is obviously too valuable for mere Autobots

to handle. Soon after, she starts to wonder where

her father is. In the end, it is revealed that

Megatron has kidnapped Isaac Sundack for some

evil plan. Some evil plan. It took me about,

I don't know, the first ten minutes of this episode

to even make a note, because my first note, lots

and lots of action. Yeah. I mean, I know this

is a two -parter and all that stuff, and it's

continuing from the last part and all that, but

I mean, it's like, they just hit you with the

action. Boom, boom, boom. Megatron's here. Megatron's

gonna kick your aft. And this, that, and the

other thing. And Megatron really takes it to

Optimus. I mean, he kicks his ass all over the

parking lot. He kicks everybody's ass. Yep. I

mean, they make it pretty clear very early on

that Megatron is stronger than Bulkhead, he's

faster than Prowl, and he can fight better than

Prime. Yep. And if Bumblebee was down there,

instead of being manhandled by Starscream, he

would have been first to go. Oh, yeah. Easily.

Give me a piece. How about two? I'll take two.

Yeah, that's exactly what would happen. Poor

Jazz. Leave Jazz's death alone. Now, I know this

isn't technically true, but I thought it was

at the time of watching this episode, and I made

this note. So Megatron's punch of ki in your

body is actually what made Starscream immortal.

Nice. Now, I know that isn't... I think it led

up to it, or it'll lead up to it, but... I don't

know. It was just an observation. It might. I

mean, as far as I can tell, anytime the key plugs

into a Cybertronian, they get healed. So if anything,

it kept him from killing Starscream outright.

Right. Exactly. Yeah. Just a little mini note.

Sky Spy again. Yay. Because I like seeing the

G1 Sky Spy satellite. I always think that's cool.

Yeah. When he, I should say, when Ratchet. talks

to Teletraan 1 again. I listen really closely,

and yeah, it's more Terra Strong than... It is

Terra. It's not just more Terra Strong. It is

Terra Strong. I pointed that out. I proved that

to you a couple episodes ago. I know, I know,

but again, this time I was really listening,

and I'm like, yeah, it's less squeaky than what

I'm used to hearing from Terra. The ship flies

again, so not even the second season, the end

of the first season, the ship flies. Yeah, that

was cool. It doesn't fly very far. No, but it

still flies. Kevin will bring this up later in

his Cybertronian correspondence, but I have to

bring it up as well. Why? How is Sari biting

Blackarachnia gonna hurt the damn robot? Like,

okay, I get that she's half organic, but seriously,

that is metal. She's got a very strong teeth

for an eight -year -old. She drinks lots of milk.

And eats lots of apples. Yeah, you know, what

I couldn't understand is, why is Blackarachnia

even in the two -parter? I mean, basically, her

purpose in the two -parter is to give Sari...

Well, number one, it's to wrap up loose ends,

because she appeared earlier in the season. But

basically here, it's to give Sari a piggyback

ride back to Lake Erie. I mean, after this, she

doesn't even show up anymore. Well, for a while.

Well, she shows up later. Much later, yeah. But

I mean, it's like, why bother? it would just

kind of aggravated me. It's like, well, she's

sorry. Could have picked up a bicycle and road

to Lake Erie, you know, and been like, Hey, swing

the ship over here and pick me up. Yeah. It would

have served the same purpose. It just didn't

make sense to have black arachnia there. You

know how we have the poke, right? Well, in this

episode, we have the pokel punch of kill lug

nut. You talk too much. Because Bulkhead activated

the button before Lugnut could activate it himself.

Yeah, that was sheer brilliance right there on

his part, which is far smarter than Bulkhead

usually is. Because Lugnut was just trouncing

him up until that point. Would you like an axe

with that gun blast, Megatron? Because Megatron's

blasting all the other Autobots, Optimus uses

his jet axe, flies up, and just sticks it right

into Megatron's shoulder, and Megatron wrenches

forward. He's like, ah! That was a lucky shot.

Yeah. Now, this will come back, this next note

will come back at the very end of Season 2 when

a piece of Sari's clothing on her arm, a piece

of her sleeve gets ripped off or damaged. No,

it's not a spoiler. I'm just saying the next

in this episode, but it will continue until the

next season at the very end of the season two

when she has a paper cut, an injury. Sorry, we

may not make it out alive. There is something

I need to tell you. Yeah. Would have been nice

to fill that in a little better. Yeah. But they

fill it in a heck of a lot better from the end

of Season 2 going into Season 3. Well, I mean,

here, it's like, there's something I have to

tell you, and it could have been like, I'm sorry

I haven't done right by you in the past. I've

been a horrible father. I've let my work overtake

all my time, but I love you. What he really wanted

to say was, I love you too! You know, it could

have been something sweet. And that's kind of

what I expected. I'm not sure what the writers

had in mind when they first wrote that. Maybe

they did say or maybe they didn't have something

in mind more toward that. There seemed to be

a lot in this episode that was left out. And

I want to bring that up later. But, you know,

one of those things could have been a very heartfelt,

meaningful, possibly goodbye from a father to

a daughter. Not, oh, by the way, in another season,

we're going to find out something horrible about

you that I might as well tell you now. You're

going to die. You have cancer. I thought I'd

just not tell you about it. Sorry. Sorry, sorry,

sorry. Exactly. Your professor princess is an

angry archer's child. I stole it. I stole it.

God, that's horrible. Forsooth. Stop it. You

want heat? I'll give you more than you can handle.

Oh, slag, not again. Is that over? No, it's...

They finally figure out, Prowl figures out, Blitzwing's

personalities are tied into his, at least the

ice personality and the heat personality, are

tied into his alt modes. The ice personality

is the jet, the heat personality is the tank,

and then the random personality is just any of

it. Why they wouldn't figure this out sooner,

I don't know. Get the horns. Yeah. They should

have figured that out a long time ago, though.

Yeah. You want power? Have your fill. Regardless

of how dickish Optimus was in this episode, when

he was fighting Megatron, he had some pretty

cool lines in. Well, I think by the time he actually

fights Megatron, he's kind of... redeemed himself

a little bit. Yeah. Because, I mean, basically,

he did call them all undisciplined, insubordinate

malfunctions. Which is just kind of rude. But

by the end, he apologizes to his team and basically

says, you know, I'm sorry for being a giant dick.

Or, you know, a giant dick. Yeah, a tiny one.

God. You all fought like Autobots. What are they

going to fight like? Cheesy GoBots from the 80s?

I mean, Jesus Christ. Of course they're going

to fight like Autobots. God, Optimus. You had

a really great line. Then you go and fuck it

up with this. Well, they could have been fighting

like the Autobot Elite Guard. That would have

been better. Oh. It's funny, too, because that's

what Bumblebee says. He's like, you know, there's

no Autobot. Prime says, there's no Autobots I'd

rather be fighting with. And Bumblebee says,

not even the Elite Guard? Because I wouldn't

mind having them here right about now. He doesn't

realize they're going to come in one more episode.

Four episodes later, Bumblebee himself will be

in the Elite Guard. I'm kidding. Why are we talking

about this? It doesn't happen. I'm kidding. It

doesn't happen yet. Sorry, Kevin. It's Michael's

fault. Again, I didn't do it this time. At the

very end, are you comfortable in your chair?

Once again, your ass is in my hand. It appears,

Professor, our fates are intertwined once more.

Your Schwartz is very small. Steve, what do you

have for this one? For the second part of the

Megatron Rising two -parter? Um... I like the

dual -wielding sword Megatron. Yeah. He's just

like, I will slice and dice. He's like Ninja

Megatron, man. Those swords are amazingly cool.

I like how it's hollow in the center. Yeah. What'd

you say, Michael? I guess he didn't say anything.

What else you got, Steve? I was saying I like

how the swords are hollow in the center. It just

makes the sword even more badass. I like how

Megatron finally gets a little bit of revenge

on Starscream, of course. That's always to be

awesome. Oh, yes. I like where Megatron gets

blown to hell after he gets rebuilt. Big explosion.

Big boom. Because if you look at the shot before

we see the fact that he's holding Professor Sumdack

in his chair, oh, I mean Megatron's hand, if

you just look at his face, it's a different angle

on his face, but if you put that next to the

TFTM shot of Megatron standing up and all scraggly

looking after battling Optimus, it's kind of

the same thing. Yeah, that was cool. Mm -hmm.

Yeah, this makes two giant explosions that Megatron

should never have walked away from. Yeah, exactly.

And yet, somehow, he still comes in ahead. He's

a Megatron. I like the kind of angled arc into

the mountainside. Yeah, I was going to try to

make an arc reference to it. Yeah, it does reference

G1 to some degree. The only problem with it,

though, is that it's like halfway up the freaking

mountain. It's not at the base. It's not at the

base of the mountain, so that's why I never made

the... I get that's what they were going for,

but I never wanted to even bring it up as far

as potentially being a G1 reference because for

me it would only have been a G1 reference if

it crashed into the very bottom of the mountain

and they had some sort of opening. Whereas where

it actually crashes is like halfway up the mountain.

Well, it's not even a mountain. It's like the

caldera of the crater. Yeah. So it's like, is

the front end sticking out the other side of

the volcano, or how does that work? But no, I

think it totally looks very G1. Yeah. Yeah, I

think that's it. I like this episode, though.

This episode is definitely... I mean, the whole

two -parter's good, but I like the overall theme

they were going for with Megatron in this. Despite

the fact that they had to blow him away again.

Yes. Michael, what about you for part two? Megatron's

best line? Transform and rise up. Yep. Can't

believe you guys glossed over that one. I practically

cheered when he said that. Well, that's also

in Mike's commercials for the podcast. Yeah,

no, that was great. I totally dug that. The plan

here is for the Autobots to get into the Ark,

get back into the ship, and lead the Decepticons

off -planet. But they don't get that far. They

get shot down. And they end up on Dinobot Island.

So the question becomes, why didn't the Dinobots

show up here? This would have been the perfect

place for them to... the fray. I mean, especially

after they made a specific run to Dinobot Island

in the last episode to recruit their help. Yeah.

And they didn't seem altogether, you know, on

board in the last episode, right? But they didn't

seem like they were like, screw you guys, we're

not helping. So, it seemed to me like they were

in the script originally, or maybe if they had

gotten ten more minutes to put into the battle,

that the Dinobots would have shown up and actually

done something. That would have been nice. It

just made sense to me. It just didn't make sense

that they'd go through all the effort of recruiting

them in the last episode and then go to the island

in their ship and then not have them show up.

Yeah. The only other thing I really had was...

Bumblebee's greatest strength. Is it obnoxious

personality? Yeah. Is that your jet mode? Or

did your pal Lugnut take a dump? Take a dump

on your head. Yeah, the key word here being dump.

What did he say? He said, oh, did he dump out

some spare parts? Yeah, he said something like

that. I heard it as take a dump, and it just

made me giggle. But that's all I had for this

one. I really liked this one. It was really cool.

I just felt that there was huge chunks missing.

Yeah. The one thing I don't particularly like

from going from season one into season two is

how they just kind of, like, the story's there.

But it's like, okay, season one ends, and then

season two starts with Elite Guard, but it seems

like six months has passed since this Megatron

Rising. It's like, again, the time in the animated

universe is completely fucked up because... It

seems like too much time has passed between this

episode and the season two premiere. It's like,

this really isn't a cliffhanger at all. Like

the cliffhanger is really part one of this episode.

Yeah, I can see that, you know, Megatron appears

and okay, we'll see you next season. Yeah. But

they go and do part two where they show this

giant battle. They show the all spark dispersing

or what did getting destroyed, whatever. And

then supposedly Megatron's destroyed, and the

cliffhanger is that he's captured Sundak again.

And then, oh, hey, see you next season, kids.

It's like, I don't know. Where is the cliffhanger

here? Yeah, there isn't one. Yeah, well, I mean,

there wasn't a whole lot of gap in between season

one and season two. No, and I understand that.

They make you wait six months. Right, and I understand

that, but I'm just saying, like, just the time

frame. It's like it ends with, you know, the

Sumdack thing with him being in Megatron's hand,

and then Season 2 when we get to it, and Kevin,

sorry if we're spoiling anything for you. I'm

not trying to here. But Season 2 when we get

to it, Season 2 opens with, oh, hey. There's

a giant ship coming in. Optimus is like, oh,

I know exactly what that is. Let's go. You know,

it's like it doesn't fully carry over. It would

have been better if they found a way to have,

you know, Megatron rising. Right. The first.

Part one be that's it. Season finale. That's

it. And then use part two to be the season two

premiere. Yeah, that makes sense. It's a shame

they didn't do it that way. Because that would

have been a nice cliffhanger. I mean, again,

if they would make you wait six months between

the end of season one and the beginning of season

two, I could see that. But the wait was like

two weeks. It wasn't like, oh, tune in five months

from now to find out what happens. I mean, they

could have ended it with Megatron getting his

new body and then immediately beating the crap

out of all the Autobots. boom you know it's like

well what happens now how how are they going

to recover from that yeah yeah the obvious answer

being starscream but you know it would have been

cool if you didn't know that for six months yeah

i mean they used to do stuff like that in beast

wars all the time where like oh my god uh you

know optimus primal just died again He just sacrificed

himself. How are they going to recover from this?

And the cool thing about Beast Wars is it took

a couple episodes for them to recover from that.

They didn't just bring him back in the next season.

Yeah. So, final thoughts on the two -parter,

Steve? Definitely two of the better episodes

out of the whole season. Michael? Yeah, again,

I really liked Megatron Rising. I liked that

Megatron came back. I liked that they brought

the whole gang in. Not the humans, per se, but...

really locked down, but everybody else was in

there. Everyone that they had met previously.

They brought back Blackarachnia. They touched

on her for apparently no reason. They brought

back the Dinobots. They touched on them briefly

for apparently no reason. It was nice. I really

liked it. I think they could have fleshed out

a little better, though. I'm the same way. I

think that if... If Megatron Rising Part 1 was

the season finale and it was just, you know,

just one episode and then have the other one

as the season two premiere, it would have been

a hell of a lot better as far as cliffhangers.

But I don't know. I do like it. It is, as Steve

said, it is one of the better ones. So I think

with that, we're going to take a break. You're

going to hear some clips, some audio stuff, and

you're also going to hear Kevin's thoughts on

Nature Calls and the Megatron Rising two -parter.

Transformation Animation Podcast will be back

after these messages. Mmm, podcast, good! Here's

quote number one. We are going camping. As in

leaving the comfort of civilization? As in no

TV? No music? No games? As in my circuits are

going to fry from boredom? Here's quote number

two. Math time, kids! End quote number three.

Okay, what's his malfunction? Technical glitch.

It happens. A lot, actually. It is not a glitch.

It is Megatron, and he commands us to deliver

him the key. Megatron! Did you just say Megatron?

Did he just say Megatron? There is no Megatron!

Megatron is offline! Terminated! I did it myself!

Saw it myself! We don't have enough Energon cubes

to power a full -scale assault. It appears the

Decepticons are mobilizing for a full -scale

assault. You interrupted my speed! Finally, quote

number four. Master, I am not worthy. I am not

worthy. We're not worthy. What happened to your

body? Soundwave, jam that transmission. Rumble

frenzy. Ravage ratbat. Eject. Operation interference.

No, there will be no operation interference.

I am TFG1 Mike, and you should be listening to

my very first podcast, the TFG1 podcast. 24 episodes

covering the entire U .S. run of the 1984 Transformers

cartoon. I also have a few supplemental episodes

and an interview with Stan Bush. I bring in guest

hosts who will be full -time co -hosts in Steve

Megatron and fan of the show now co -host P.

Concord Michael. So check out the TFG1 podcast.

You can find it on iTunes and the web at www

.geekcastradio .com. Transform and roll out!

Welcome to my throne of future tales. The Beast

Unleashed podcast is over, not gone. You can

hear more of this great podcast discussing all

the episodes of Beast Wars and Beast Machines

on geekcastradio .com. We include voice actor

and writer interviews with stellar hosting by

Steve, Mike, and michael head on over to itunes

or the net or else i will send you my vehicles

to extract your spark and destroy you yes guys,

it's Optimus Solo, your Cybertronian correspondent,

giving you my thoughts on episodes 14 through

16. Let's start with episode 14, which is entitled

Nature Calls, and it's written by Todd Casey.

Camping? Barnacle Monster? Yeah. Not a good start

to this episode. The low point of the episode

is when Optimus Prime praises, sorry, For her

ingenuity. Yes, because it is ingenious to stick

your key in any freaking object in your near

vicinity. Yes, that's ingenuity, folks. Stick

your key in anything and everything. So that

was the low point. I don't know, this episode,

I'm not really going to say much about it because

there wasn't much to talk about. I mean, it's

a pretty pointless episode. It has no relevance

really to the bigger picture. It's basically

like a one -off episode minus the ending where

Soomdak gets the piece of Decepticon. framework,

body, etc., whatever you want to call it, with

the Decepticon symbol on it there. So that was

the only relevant part of the episode. Otherwise,

it was a Transformers Go Camping episode. So

we've seen the Transformers go trick -or -treating,

celebrate a birthday party, we've seen them cry,

we've seen them take naps, and now we've seen

them go camping. Nature calls, you get a 4 out

of 10. Episode 15, Megatron Rising Part 1, written

by Marsha Griffin. First of all, the Decepticon

interaction between Lugnut and Starscream is

fantastic. When Lugnut is actually speaking to

Megatron, but Starscream is standing in front

of him, and Starscream thinks he's talking to

him, and he's confused. That was just a whole

great scene. That's one of the best scenes I've

seen in a while on this series. And then my major

problem with this episode, I generally like this

episode, but my major problem is the Transformers,

and this kind of is weird because I talked about

this in my last correspondence, they finally

realize that Sari shouldn't have the freaking

key. Sari should not have the key. She's a human.

Megatron should be able to take it from her whenever

he darn well pleases. So Sari shouldn't have

the key, and they finally realize that. But the

way they execute this is stupid. It's stupid

that they execute this as, number one, this is

how Megatron is going to get the key because

Sari doesn't have it. And also, the way Prime

does it, he comes across as a complete ass. So

I like the idea that they finally realized that

Sari doesn't need the key, but the way they executed

this is terrible. And I'm talking about the writing

here. Megatron... If the Decepticons could get

it from Ratchet that easy, they could have got

it from Sari at any point. Come on. It is stupid

that Sari is the holder of the key and that they

entrust a human to hold the key. So it was a

good idea to get it away from her. It's stupid

that then they use that as why Megatron gets

the key, and it's because Sari didn't have it.

That's weak. And then Optimus Prime not only

is an ass in this episode, but he also reverts

back into Rodimus Prime mode with all his I'm

not good enough. I'm going to feel sorry for

myself and self -pity, etc. So that was a weak

point, too. They should have just named this

character Optimus Prime and not had Optimus Prime

in this series at all. The episode, though, I

don't want to make it sound like it's a bad episode.

The episode's good. The episode is way more relevant

than nature calls. We have Megatron getting his

body back. We have Megatron rising, as the title

suggests. And Megatron's robot mode is awesome.

I only have one slight complaint, and that is

his forehead or his face is kind of weird. too

big of a forehead or something, but overall,

his whole form is pretty epic. He's a kick -ass

villain. And then we move right into the second

part of this, which I hate how they always do

this, but cartoons especially always do this,

where they have two different writers write a

first part and a second part. I always think

that the person who writes the first part should

write the second part. But now Marty Eisenberg

takes over and writes the second part. The low

point of this episode and my what -the -fuck

moment is when Sari bites Blackarachnia, and

apparently a human biting a piece of metal hurts

Blackarachnia so much that she throws Sari up

in the air and Ratchet grabs her. What the fuck,

like I said. And here's the bad part. The Allspark...

Gets destroyed, so to speak. And Optimus Prime

utters the lines, Now the key is more powerful

than... Or is the most powerful artifact in the

universe. So fuck. Now the key is even more powerful

than it was before? And then he says it's too

important to be protected by Autobots. No. Autobots

are who should be protecting it. I don't understand

the fact that the human is the one who should

be protecting the key. Give me a fucking break.

But... Let's not take away from the epicness

of Megatron Rising, his battle, the multiple

battles between the Autobots and the Decepticons.

These two... The two -part of this episode is

so relevant compared to When Nature Calls and

compared to most of the episodes we talked about

last time that I'm giving this two -parter a

7 out of 10. It could have been done a little

bit better. It could have been even more epic.

But we had the Dinobots. We had Black Ragnar.

We had Megatron getting his body. We had a lot

of cool stuff. So 7 out of 10. Not bad. I kind

of enjoyed this episode. So I'll send it back

to the guys on Earth and hear their thoughts.

Final thoughts on... what I had to say about

Nature Calls and Megatron Rising. Now back to

Transformation Animation Podcast. We are back

here on Earth. Thank you to the Cybertronian

correspondent, Optimus Solo. Steve, do you have

anything to respond to Kevin on Nature Calls?

Agree with him. Michael? I have to agree with...

I mean, I always agree with his verbiage, right?

But I kind of have to agree with his opinion

on this one. Yeah. And I didn't really write

anything down because I've kind of already said

it in the episode today, but nature calls, I

really, really sympathized and agreed with Bumblebee.

We need to just get out of this stupid nature.

Stupid nature. Anything for part one of Megatron

Rising, Steve, to respond to Kevin? I pretty

much agree with everything he said. Michael?

Sigh. I agree, too. I know you don't want any

spoilers, so I can't say anything about why Sari

is the Keymaster. Are you the gatekeeper? I was

hoping that people would pick up on the Ghostbusters

reference. She's not quite as hot as 1980's Sigourney

Weaver. First of all, Eight -year -old little

girl. Let's not go there, Michael. Sigourney

Weaver was, like, well into her 30s by the time...

I know that. I'm talking about Sari. You said

she's not as hot as Sigourney back in the 80s.

Sari's an eight -year -old little girl. Give

it a couple seasons. Oh, God. Shut up. Anything

on part two of Megatron Rising? Nay. So, apparently,

we all agree with you, Kevin. Sadly. I like to

argue with Kevin. I really do. It's like, what

do you know? You've never even seen this shit.

What are you talking about? I almost want, when

we do the season one recap, I almost want to

bring him on the show and have the four of us

just talk about the entire season. I almost really

want to bring him on the show. I don't see why

not. For the recap, let's do it. There you go.

Thank you for joining us here on Transformation

Animation Podcast. There's several ways to get

in contact with us or leave feedback for the

show. Visit the website geekcastradio .com. You

can comment on each episode post. We haven't

been getting a lot of comments on anything lately.

Come on, people. Leave the show's feedback in

iTunes. No, there are no new iTunes reviews this

week. Go leave reviews, people. Follow us on

Twitter. The show name there is TFA Podcast.

Mine is TFGMO Mike. Steve, what is your Twitter?

SCP -21. I remember having a burnt toast. And

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As I said before, the voicemail line is back

up and running. Tell us the show you're leaving

the message for and your name. 502 -526 -5821.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Transformation

Animation Podcast and wish you'll join us next

time when we will be doing the Season 1 recap

and possibly have Kevin on the show. We'll actually

bring him back from Cybertron. For now, I am

TFG1 Mike with... Michael Wilson. And Steve Megatron

Phillips. We'll tap you again next week. I wonder

how much airfare from Cybertron is. Can we afford

that in our budget? What budget? It's expensive.

You guys haven't been dipping into petty cash?

Because I have. Do you want to send some of that

petty cash my way, dammit? Oh God, I'm having

bad, bad, bad, don't tell mom the babysitter's

dead flashbacks. Hey, wait, we rented that movie.

Really? Yeah. Transform and roll out.