Sound of Fury, Lost and Found, Survival of the Fittest

I got a vibe tells me I should be sitting in

on this scene for a while. I am Soundwave. I

am Decepticon. The revolution begins now. and

I'm jiving to this episode of Transformation

Animation featuring Mike Blanchard, Stephen C.

Phillips, and Michael Wilson. Hello and welcome

to episode four of Transformation Animation Podcast.

I am one of your hosts, Steve, Drew, and Mike,

and joining me is Steve Megatron. Hello. Yes,

sir. And P -Gone Court Michael. Hey, how's it

going? It's going. So what's going on with you,

Steve? It's going. Um... Other than that, I've

been... That's all I got. Yeah. Yeah. Ta -da!

No, I've been working on voice crap lately, trying

to land at least one paid gig, which it's proving

difficult, but like the other voice actors, the

real ones say, you can't get discouraged. You

just have to keep going. You may get one. You

may not. Whatever. Just keep auditioning. So

that's the plan. Besides that, I rented more

so a book on how to actually act and improv at

the library so that I can actually put my marbles

where the voice is. You totally need that. You're

good with the voices, I think, but you really

need to work on your improv. Yeah, because when

I get put on the spot, I'm kind of like, Hello!

And so, yeah, that's part of it. Other than that,

the teaser poster for Beast Wars Dark Glass was

released two days ago. I saw that, and my response

was... You didn't see my response? No. I didn't,

no. I said, released in 2016, you better produce

harder. that's what she said but um um no on

it for how long now at least a year already they've

well they've been knocking out the modeling of

the characters and trying to get the bipeds so

they transform over the last year it it's been

yeah it's been a year or so since you first told

us about this From now until 2016, that's a long

time to do stuff, so I'm sure they'll... It is,

but the problem is we've only got three people

that can actually do the texturing and animation.

So that, in between doing their normal, like,

real -life jobs and their families and all that,

so it just kind of is, you know, they want to

get it pumped out faster. It's just, there's

not... They don't want to disappoint people,

kind of like how Duke Nukem did. Oh, we're coming

up. 1999. Wow. 13 years later. So they're setting

a farther target date so that if it does get

done sooner... 13 years later and we still give

you a shitty game. Yeah, so that's why we set

the date so late. Because all the voicing is

in. Everybody's approved. Except for our fucking

rampage. So if I don't hear back and the backup

won't do it, I'm going to recast that role because

I'm getting tired of waiting. I've been badgering

for three months on this. Everybody else has

turned their lines in. So, yeah. But if you have

to wait five years and it ends up looking like

ass, then, you know. Well, the CNS, they want

to make sure that it looks mainframe quality.

Just pound that shit out in a weekend. Put it

out there. I don't think that's going to happen.

This coming from the guy that won't do any YouTube

videos because he says it takes too much damn

work to do them. I want to do it right. Oh, all

right. Going back to you. Okay, you just said

it, Michael. These guys, they want to do it right.

And if it takes them... six years to do it right,

then it takes them six years to do it right.

It might be six months, not six years. In six

years, technology is going to be so advanced

in that field that it shouldn't take six years

to do it. Well, it's not going to be six years.

There's tools now that do all the animation for

you. It's going to be five. It's going to be

five. But no, it may come out in 2014, though.

It's just... They're targeting it because it's

the 20th anniversary of Beast Wars by then. That's

true. It's the 15th anniversary of Beast Wars.

Technically, that's this year. It's not going

to come out this coming weekend at TFCon. They're

going to be shipping the poster at TFCon with

everybody's names on it. I saw something like

that. It was associated with TFCon. It's like

dark glass. Dark Glass is not associated with

TFCon. No, no, no. Dark Glass isn't what you

probably saw, Michael, was the... You saw the

TFCon thing, and they used some of the modeling,

like the guys that are doing Dark Glass, had

to take a break from it to do that for John Bailey,

who made the TFCon teaser. Yeah, there was a

TFCon teaser with David Kaye voicing Megatron

again, but the Beast Wars Megatron model was

from the Dark Glass stuff. Yeah, so they probably

pounded that out in a weekend, and it didn't

look bad. No, but it also wasn't just them. They

had the guys that usually do all the regular

animating, you know, their blaster ink or whatever,

and then does John's normal stuff, and then they've

got some of the other... 3D animators. If they

can get everybody on board, I'm sure they can

pump this out within a year. But since it's just

these three guys, it's probably going to take

a while. Hopefully sooner. I'm optimistic. Crossing

the fingers. Yes. Okay, then. What have you been

up to, Michael? Nothing. I'm just doing the daddy

thing. Who's your daddy? Who's your daddy? Since

I'm in Indiana, it could also be, who's your

daddy? Oh, God. That's a horrible, horrible joke.

That is hilarious. Who's your daddy? Who's your

daddy? Who's your daddy? That's right. Oh, God.

So that's what I've been doing, just taking care

of the kids and watching them grow. They're adorable

at this age. And, oh, and Aiden has been watching

Transformers Prime with me. Yeah. He likes it.

But, you know, it was funny because we watched

these three episodes that we're about to review.

We watched those together. And he loved it. Four.

I'm sorry. Well, I watched three of them with

him. But he loved it. He thought it was awesome.

He loves Bulkhead. He loves Bumblebee. Okay,

whoa, whoa, whoa. You seem to be watching Transformers

Prime with him. This is Transformers Animated.

Well, that's what I'm saying, though. We watched

Animated, the first three episodes, and then

we watched Prime together, and he's like, who's

that? And I said, it's Bulkhead. And he goes,

oh, yeah. That's almost like your story of him

watching Star Wars. Oh, yeah. Was that from today?

I believe so, about Luke. We were reading a book.

It was story time. And he's got a book called

Star Wars Heroes. And each page has a different

character on it. And we did Luke Skywalker and

Obi -Wan. And then there was Anakin Skywalker.

And I said, well, this is Anakin Skywalker. And

he's like, well, is that like Luke? And I said,

well, you know, that's Luke's dad. And he goes,

oh, he's Darth Vader. And I was like. Yeah! I

got this geek pride thing going on. I'm so proud

of my boy! Because he put this together. And

he's never even seen Empire. So I don't even

know where he got that from. I just thought it

was funny. It is funny. And as for me, I've just

been doing the normal stuff. I recorded an episode

with animation aficionados Neil and Ben over

there. I recorded the Twig Topic Show on Captain

America. That'll be out. That'll be coming soon.

What else have I been doing? Been going through

the Almanacs a bit. Just looking at different

stuff in there. And that's pretty much it. So

I think we're going to get into some episodes.

The Autobots. Illogical. Autobots are machines.

They are traitors who live to serve the humans.

Conclusion. Autobots must be destroyed. So first

up today is Sound and Fury. Megatron creates

Soundwave, a robot in the form of a toy robot

for Isaac to give to Sari for her birthday. Bulkhead

is the only one who finds the toy to be a bad

thing and finds out that the toy is evil. Unknown

to Sari, the more she uses her key on Soundwave,

the more he will evolve into a bigger robot,

which Megatron intends to use as his new body.

However, after using the key many times... Soundwave

becomes self -aware and assembles all the robots

in Detroit to combine with them to create an

army. When the Autobots catch wind of Soundwave's

plan, they try to stop him. Most of the Autobots

get overwhelmed and Bulkhead goes down to the

sewers to confront Soundwave. Soundwave tries

to convince Bulkhead to his logic. Bulkhead tricks

Soundwave and smashes him to pieces, but Soundwave

survives as a cassette player. Dun -dun -dun.

Dun -dun. Yeah. Now, we've had bad human villains

so far, but they're tolerable. Like, Angry Archer,

I can tolerate him. Nanosek, I can tolerate him.

Worst human villain ever, Professor Princess.

Are you fucking kidding me? I like Professor

Princess. I dig it. Oh, my God. She's here to

save us from awful violent toys. Okay, but, all

right, hold on. All right, so you just said that

she's here to save us from awful violent toys.

Yeah. She's here to do that by being fucking

violent. Really? Well, how violent are, you know,

kittens shot from a bazooka? If they explode,

they're pretty fucking violent. What kills me,

though, is she's not here to rob banks. She's

not here to take over the world. She's here to

trash my stuff. I love that. What better motivation

for a supervillain? You can't say she's not a

supervillain, because she has a flying... What,

Powdered Sugar? Pony. Powdered Sugar, the flying,

well, it's a unicorn pony. Apocalypse pony. It's

a Transformers My Little Pony crossover. It's

awesome. It is awesome. Did you see the name

of the toy store that she trashes? Yeah, Wyatt's

Toys. Wyatt's Toys, that's awesome. Yeah. You

know, if I were making a cartoon, I would totally

have a Wilson Toys. And I would have Professor

Princess fly Powdered Sugar in and trash it.

I thought this was... I don't know. The whole

birthday party thing. They've had a theme to

go along with every story. Not every story, but

most of the stories. We had the Halloween episode

that centered around Blackarachnia. We had the...

What was the other one? The kind of 4th of July

thing that centered around Nanosek. And now...

All of a sudden it's Sari's birthday? Sure, why

not? I guess, but as we've said before, time

in the animated universe is very, very weird.

Yeah, you know, we haven't seen a Christmas episode

yet. We go from July to October. That doesn't

come until season three. Okay, so yeah, so July,

October, and now it's supposedly springtime again.

Because, you know, it gets really cold in Detroit.

Yeah. But it seems to be nice and summery here

where all the kids are out in the stadium. Yeah.

Yeah, I would know how, you know, Michigan is.

It sucks. It sucks, exactly. It's even worse

in Chicago, I think. But, yeah, that was funny

because they're like, of course they came. You're

their parents' boss. Yeah. Daniel is there. Yep,

Daniel is there. Daniel makes another appearance.

So the question becomes, does Spike work for

some deck? No, he works for Sam. Oh, that's bad.

Yeah, sorry. I had to throw that. Right over

my head. I'm sorry. Sam, he's saying he works

for Witwicky. From the movie. Oh, no. He is Sam

from the movie. No, Spike in here is a hell of

a lot better than fucking Shia LaBeouf. He comes

to the world twice. You better hire me, fucker.

Carly made an appearance. Do you think that was

Carly? She looked a little tan. In this episode?

Yeah. I only noticed Daniel. Well, I mean, Daniel,

it's obvious. He's front and center. I didn't

notice if Carly or Spike showed up. Carly wasn't

in this one. Carly showed up in Headmaster, I

believe. Oh, okay. Yeah, because Bulkhead was

busy trashing the area, and he tore the arm off

of the reporter bot. Oh, that's right. We'll

get to that. Yeah. Well, Daniel was crying, and

then somebody ran over, but it didn't look much

like Carly. I thought this was a really interesting

way of creating and bringing Soundwave into this

animated universe. Instead of just having him

be there, like, already existing, you know, I

thought this was really, really cool how they

did this. I like the giant Walkman. The giant

Walkman grows legs and walks away. Yep. Because

it's a Walkman, so it can walk. Yep. I just thought

that was funny. It was neat that, I mean, it

was only Soundwave's box, but it was cool how

they, you know, put that cameo in there. Yep.

Soundwave controls all robots. Soundwave is the

Pied Piper of robots. Ain't that, I was hoping

for a Pied Piper reference in the episode. No,

it is true. I like how all the robots become

Bender. Yeah. Die, all you meatbags. That was

great. That was great. I love Soundwave's upgraded

form. That's just so awesome. He does look cool.

It's better in the cartoon than the actual toy.

The toy version of it, the actual action figure.

It looks the same. It does. It looks the same.

I just, I don't know. Soundwave is too, Soundwave,

the deluxe Soundwave action figure, he's midget.

He's just, he doesn't even feel like a deluxe

to me at all. And I know it's in the animated

style. I know it's in the animated workings of

how they made the animated toy line. Yeah. That

I would have to say is like one of my least favorite

animated toys. Oh, no. See, he's a little stocky

as a toy. stocky, like, you know, short and squat.

But I really think that's how he looked in the

cartoon, too. Yeah. I think it's a great toy.

Now, what I would have liked to have seen is

a talking Voyager -sized toy. Oh, yeah. You know,

you transform him and he says, you know, the

revolution begins now. Yeah. I think that would

rule. Yeah. Why is he made of Legos in the show?

He's not made of Legos. He's made of other...

No, I'm saying when he shatters. It's not Legos,

but it's the same mentality. If you throw a Lego

creation against the wall, it's going to shatter

into a million pieces. When it shatters, you

see little bits of robot flying around. It doesn't

look like Legos. There are a couple of scenes

when they're sweeping the stuff up, when Bulkhead's

cleaning up, that you can see a little bit of

the circular block things on some of the pieces.

I can kind of see that. Anybody notice the crimsy

please stand by TV screen? Yeah, that's a nice

cameo. I love that. That's so awesome. And I

guess winking means people aren't going to do

what you expect them to. I think the wink was

just there for sorry to realize that he was just

kidding. Yeah. It wasn't like... I'm going to

pull a big twist. It's not like M. Night Shyamalan

is over there winking. Wink! There's a twist

coming. It's just like to let her know that I'm

not really going to squish you. It just looks

like I'm going to squish you. It's okay. And

I love Megatron's line at the end. He's talking

about the key. When I get my servos on, as soon

as I have servos... I just kind of love this

episode all around. I didn't really, like outside

of Professor Princess, I really didn't find too

many things that wrong with it on my own watching

it. I like it because it's Soundwave. Yeah. I

mean, and yes, there are humans in this a little

bit, but it's... I mean, this isn't a total human

episode. This is more so an almost all -robot

episode. Yes, there's Sari's party. Yes, there's

Sumdak and all that. But, I mean, to have a total,

you know, to have a Soundwave that's characteristic

is machines should take over the world, you know,

and actually showing him taking over machines

to take over the city, I thought that was really

cool. Yeah. I really liked Soundwave in this.

One of the things I liked most is that they actually

used the voice modulator. Yep. But that's Jeff

Bennett doing the voice, though. Oh, well, I

mean, you know. I'm just saying, yes, they used

the modulator, but it's actually Jeff Bennett

who's credited as Soundwave, I believe. Well,

I don't expect Frank Walker to come back and

use the voice modulator. I thought it was nice.

Because I'm one of the biggest complainers, period,

but I'm one of the biggest complainers about

not using the voice modulator in the movie. And

the big reason there was you can't understand

what he's saying. And I would counter that with,

he doesn't say much. He had like one line in

each movie. Maybe two in the last movie. But

the fact is, When Soundwave talks here, I don't

understand much of what he's saying. I literally

had to go back and listen to it again to understand

what he was saying. So, I mean, that was a downside.

But the one thing I understood him saying was

when he was calling out the operation. Operation

recruitment. I think he said it twice. Yeah,

that's a nice touch. It was awesome. It was really

cool. So I was happy. As far as Soundwave goes...

You gotta have a sound wave. But I was just really

digging the way they did it here. Yeah, it was.

Steve, what did you like about the episode or

didn't like? Or what do you got for the episode

for Santa Fury? Well, human characters aside,

because, you know. Yeah. I would say that Professor

Princess should go mount her little pony and

crash into a fucking river and drown. Go ride

your apocalypse pony. Soundwave, step on her.

But I liked how the key actually took... It actually

had a purpose in creating something in this.

Yeah. Whereas before, it's like, oh, you know,

insert shameless plug here, and yeah. Oh, there'll

be plenty of shameless plugs in later episodes

today. Yeah, should be doing a lot of plug and

play. Yeah, anyways. Just like Soundwave. I don't

like his little, like, tiny -ass bot mode. Yeah,

that's kind of lame. I just, yeah. I do like

how when he transforms to his cassette player

mode, he does look like the classic Soundwave.

Oh, yeah. At the end, or? What do you mean? When

he's, like, stripped out of nothing? Yeah, when

he's just basic boombox, it's at the end, pretty

much. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, there's a whole

reason why he started off as a skinny little,

you know, toy robot and then kind of grew and

grew and grew. So I would have been disappointed

if they would have said, here's Soundwave, and

you've got Soundwave. You know, he turns into

a giant Walkman. I mean, when I was really happy

when the giant Walkman walked away and it was

a little tiny robot. Because I thought, okay,

now this is the type of thing that you would

give to a kid to dance around and sing for. Yeah.

Not Soundwave. But, yeah, I did like how they

did that, though. That was cool. And it kind

of gave her an incentive to keep using the key.

Because she does it once, and he pops out speakers.

And she does it again, and he pops out huge subwoofers.

And she does it again, and he gets bigger and

plays more music. She's thinking, wow, what is

going to happen next when I use the key? So she

just keeps doing it, and that was Megatron's

plan all along. He wants her to create him a

new body, so using the key is a bad idea for

her, but a good thing for Megatron. Yeah. And

I love the constant eye shift, the constant eye

color change from yellow to red. Oh, yeah, because

yellow was the eye color of the toy, and red

was the eye color in the cartoon. Well, not even

that, no. In the cartoon, he starts out having

yellow eyes. Once he starts using the key...

Red was the color in the G1 cartoon. Right. So

he's shifting back and forth from those two iconic

colors. Yeah, and that's the thing, because...

Throughout this entire series, and this isn't

a spoiler, so Kevin, you don't have to fast forward

or anything. Throughout this entire series, they

use color shift in almost everything. It comes

in big in Season 3, but they use color change

all the time like that. Kind of like just fading

from yellow to red and back and forth. So I did

like how they did that. I thought that was really

cool. What else you got, Steve? Did you notice

Crim Zeke made the appearance? Yeah. That was

kind of neat. Overall, I think I like this episode

just for the G1 nostalgia and actually watching

Soundwave do something more than just eject shit.

Yeah. He actually did Torment on his own, which

was quite nice. His beefed -up mode, you've got

to admit, looked pretty badass. It was cool.

So I would say that definitely, other than Professor

Princess, I like this episode. And I will say

that this isn't the last that we've seen of Soundwave,

and that's all I'm going to say about it. What

about you, Michael? What did you like or dislike

about Sound and Fury? Again, I have to defend

Professor Princess. Are you her knight in shining

armor? Exactly. I'm going to ride in on a sad

little pony to rescue her. No, it's just so damn

cute. It's like death by cuteness. Well, we'll

put it this way. Here. She's here. In the episode,

people are like, why is she in this episode?

This is so dumb. She's here primarily to demonstrate

to Megatron what the key can do. Because, you

know, she shows up out of the blue to destroy

things and, sorry, plugs the key into, I don't

know, a boombox, a giant speakers or something.

And, yeah, they use, like, the patented G1 jazz

attack. Yeah. You crank up the tunes and the

sound waves fly out and attack whoever you want

attacked. And, you know, it takes her out. But

the idea there is Megatron's watching and he

goes, what I could do with that key. Yeah. And

I'm sure he's seen the key in action before.

He's like, oh, what I could do with that key.

But here they're really, you know, they're really

pushing it. And the best part is when the horse

head falls in her lap. It was such a nice touch.

And I was thinking, what was that? The Godfather.

You wake up and there's a horse in your bed.

Oh, wow. Yeah. I actually laughed. I laughed

so hard because she's like, Powder Sugar, no.

I just rolled. It was so funny. Oh. And then,

you know, the only other time you really see

humans here is at the birthday party. And that

had a few good moments, like the purple dinosaur

pinata. That was a nice touch. No. Exactly. And

he got Ratchet in the background going, smack

it! Smack it already! That's what she said. Was

it a purple, like, transmittal dinosaur, or was

it a purple, colorful dinosaur that belongs on

children's television? No, it wasn't like a barnacle.

I know. I'm trying to throw in the hole. If it

had a red eye, I'd be thinking, you know, Beast

Wars Megatron. It wasn't transmittal. It was

just, you know, like the regular old dinosaur.

But I appreciated it. I thought that was cool.

And Professor Sumdack's like, don't leave. Have

some punch. And I'm thinking, no way. Sorry you

just hocked a loogie in that. I wouldn't want

a drink of that either. That's kind of gross.

Come here, kids. Have some pie. Have some pie.

I just hocked a loogie in it. I took a giant

shit on your pie. But as far as all the kids

running up and wanting rides on the Autobots,

I mean, we've already established that. The Autobots

are kind of celebrities slash heroes in the city.

So, I mean, of course all the little kids are

going to idolize them and want to ride in them.

One of the little kids actually has an Optimus

Prime t -shirt. So, yeah, I mean, someone's making

money off it. But you realize, yeah, they know

who these guys are, and they're all lined up,

and they're saying, say it, say it, please! And

Optimus Prime says, Transform and roll out. And

you kind of get a feeling there how David Kaye

feels at conventions. He's like, fine. I'll say

it. Or even Peter Cullen. Yeah, because you know

Cullen gets that all the time. Say it, Peter.

Freedom is the right of all sentient beings.

No, not that one. The other one. What other one?

No, I was like... You were acting like Peter,

you know, people saying, you know, say it, say

it. And then Peter says a line and the line is

not the one they want to hear. So it's like the

freedom, freedom is right of all sentient beings.

No, not that line. The other one. Give me your

face.