Transformers Animated Allspark Almanacs Review

Transformers! Golden Messiah! Transformers! Robots

in disguise! Autobots wage the battle to destroy

the evil forces of the Decepticons! Transformers!

Transformers! and I'm jiving to this episode

of Transformation Animation featuring Mike Blanchard,

Steven C. Phillips, and Michael Wilson. Hello

and welcome to episode 19 of Transformation Animation

Podcast. I am one of your hosts, Teef John Mike,

and joining me is Steve Megatron. Hello. Hello.

And Pecan Court Michael. Hello. Hey, how's it

going? It's going. What's been going on with

you, Steve? Not much. I finally pried my ass

away from Arkham. But, um... You are a stronger

man than I. I've beat it three times. It's because

he's been playing for the last 175 hours. Off

and on. I thought you were playing the DC universe.

As soon as I got an arc on my jump ship. Because

it's just a hell of a lot better, and I'm stuck

in DC. Not that I won't eventually go back to

it, but I'm also playing Spider -Man Shattered

Dimensions on 360, which is quite cool. That

looks cool, actually. It's difficult in some

aspects, but it's kind of cool because you get

to play as the different timelines and they get

special powers. And some of their abilities are

similar to playing Arkham, so I was right at

home. Is the control scheme the same? Roughly

the same between games? It's similar. There's

a lot less controls to be had in the Spider -Man.

It's fine, but Other than that pretty much been

Besides our membership application on the website

now, yes which we had to draft because we were

getting ample of emails of people inquiring to

join the network, so We had to make an application

for people to fill out and a guideline of rules

and So yeah, yeah, that's been going on we've

been working on the guide to next year what's

coming next year I actually have to go back and

listen to the Last year's year in review episode

because I have to figure out how the hell I organized

that last year So I got to do that for this year's

Let's see we also have a I think where'd I put

it here we go Even though this is transformation

animation. We are currently not doing any more

TBU episodes, but we did get a review on TBU

It was left on November 17th 2011 by a child

Charles Niedemeyer Four star review why not five

I have no idea very good show tough currently

a Easter podcast is probably my favorite of the

transformers and I'm so glad there's finally

a podcast covering it in this show You get an

in -depth look at each episode plus voice actor

interviews great stuff So thank you to him for

leaving that review As for what about you Michael,

what are you been up to seeing as how it's the

holiday season? What is the family Wilson been

up to? Oh That's a good question actually Find

it very hard to tear myself away from Skyrim

lately Yeah, I got a buddy of mine that's going

on a hundred hours and he has barely touched

the the main storyline Good lord. Yeah, I don't

know how many I've got I think I'm going on about

30 and I haven't touched the main storyline yet,

but it's It's fairly immersive. I mean, I just

ordered a brand new computer just to play it.

I mean, well, I installed it on my machine, and

my machine immediately said, oh, you're not seriously

going to try to run this, are you? It didn't

go that far. I can play it. I just have it on

the lowest visual settings. And even then, it's

so... Bogs down a bit sometimes they're like

it's like there's this huge beautiful vistas

of countryside with mountains and occasionally

a flying dinosaur in the distance and The minute

I look up My machine grinds to a halt while it's

busy rendering all these mountains and then it

kicks back in and I can move so like half the

time I'm staring at the ground while I'm running

and people are sneaking up on me and Mountain

lions are chewing my face off before I know what's

going on It's just not the way the game was meant

to be played. So I got a new machine in the mail

now. It should be coming here in a week or so.

Are you sure about that? Are you sure no one

stole it or anything like that? Well, you know,

I actually got a really good deal through Dell.

It was like a Black Friday deal. It was a thousand

dollars off this machine. I mean, I've got like

16 gigs of RAM. So sorry, 16 gigs of RAM, two

terabytes of hard drive space. I've got just

a ginormous video card in there. This thing's

gonna run like a monster. And I'm really looking

forward to playing Skyrim on it, but I haven't

received it yet because we're waiting on the

video card. Yeah, I mean, initially it had canceled.

And I'm thinking what the hell I was expecting

to get it, you know, and I went online and found

out that it was canceled And I talked to the

guy the customer service guy and he said well

It canceled itself because this video card won't

be in for a month and I'm like tough, you know

reinstated I'll wait What's that video card?

So so yeah, so I'm waiting on the new computer

now. It should come in in a couple weeks I won't

get it until after Christmas, which is unfortunate,

but Yeah, yeah, this is kind of like my wife

and I this is kind of like our Christmas gifts

to each other because we both got one Yeah, yeah,

so it's like I'm notoriously hard to buy for

so just you know, buy me a $2 ,000 computer Okay,

then Well, that's the beauty of it because I

got it for like, you know a little over a thousand

It's ridiculously powerful expensive Beast of

a machine and yeah, I got it for Less than what

I could have built it on my own for And that's

really the criteria there. I got fully capable

of building the machine on my own But can I can

I just buy it cheaper with a warranty? I'll do

it that way As far as me I'm getting all the

new shows ready for next year Getting blog posts

for the end of the year done. Let's see, what

else? Getting the GCR music spotlight going.

We've got to record our 80s episode this month.

This show's coming to an end. This is the second

to last episode of TAP. So there's that. Other

than that, not much else is really going on.

So... It's winding down for the holidays, huh?

It's not even I mean I'm still gonna be working

straight through because I mean my mom lives

up, Massachusetts I'm here by myself, so I don't

care I mean to me and this is not to take anything

away from the holiday spirit, but to me it's

just another day at this point because I Mean

I'll just be here by myself, so I don't really

care I mean I've already sent my mom her Christmas

presents I already told her you know hey if you

want to wait till Christmas fine if you don't

that's fine, too to open them uh it's just not

yeah the holidays pretty much have no meaning

for me anymore that's a shame eh shit happens

so we're gonna take a break you're gonna hear

some quotes and then we'll come back with the

all spark almanac volume one discussion Perhaps

thou should've planned this caper with greater

forethought, hmm? Such as arranging a getaway

car? Hey William Smell, quit pickin' on her.

Quiet, both of you. I'm thinking. Hi there. Look

to your left. The key is in the ignition. Come

on! From whence comes this? Don't argue with

the lady, get in! Not a chariot, featherbrain.

It's an SUV. Hey, SUV. That's what we ought to

call ourselves. As in Society of... Ultimate

Villainy. Ooh, I like it. The preps couldn't

have gone far. They're on foot! Not anymore,

they're not. Handles like a dream, doesn't it?

Also plenty of cargo space for your stolen loot,

and don't even get me started on a cup holder.

Let me just say I've had my eye on your operation

for the last few days, and I'm really impressed

with what I'm seeing. The whole costume villain

team -up thing. It's very exciting. I'm thinking

we could do something together. Yes, that's funny.

Kind of a nice scratch -your -back -you -scratch

-mine type arrangement. Consider this slick ride

a down payment. It's a truck. Big one. Push the

red button. for stuff that was for season four

yeah and the pictures of all the stuff that yeah

yeah this is just it's like we'll get to that

wow it's just terribly terribly cool stuff yes

it is all right we are back and we are going

to start the all spark almanac discussion with

volume one both volumes are written by jim sorenson

and bill forrester the volume one cover has a

bulkhead with a broom And sorry, sitting on his

neck. Yeah, I don't know why they went with this

cover. I honestly don't. No, he doesn't have

a broom. He's painting. Oh, broom, paintbrush,

whatever. It looks like a broom to me. Well,

it is a broom because he uses the broom to paint

with. But, you know, that's like, I don't want

to say a major portion of bulkheads. Backstory

and as backstory, but you know his personality.

He's like well, and I'm the big but dumb bumblebot

I think I'll paint and he spent several episodes

just painting. Yeah, so I kind of like this It's

uh, yeah, especially cuz sorry He's got her little

paintbrush in her hand and she's for some reason

covered in blue paint. I don't get it But you

know, I like it. I like that. It kind of it kind

of looks like they painted the cover together

Yeah Well, they do like to paint together Well,

yeah, I mean they're artistic and such It's stuff

and junk Stuff and junk stuff One of the first

things that caught my eye when I was You know

flipping through this was the the table of contents

page not really for the fact that it's oh my

god It's the table of contents and you can see

where to go from there But mainly for all of

the different logos that they originally had

for the show. All the different logo designs.

I really love those. Yeah, it's kind of an interesting,

you know, behind the scenes look. Directly across

from that, you've got. You know, kind of sketches

of what the characters would end up looking like.

Yeah, so lots of behind the scenes type stuff

in here. Oh, yeah, yeah. Several pages of. Character

sketches. Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm assuming that

Derek Wyatt just Turned over his notebook and

said here you go Publish all this stuff. I almost

wish they would have went with some of these

designs in here more so than What they used Which

would what you mean like transformers hero or

new not the name? Originally yeah, originally

they were gonna have that series be Transformers

Hero and the toys and I'm assuming portions of

the storyline would have been more directly related

to the Unicron trilogy. But then they went with

the Derek Wyatt route which was more cartoony

and stylized. I think what Steve is saying is

he wishes that... More of the robot designs looked

like the sketches kind of like ratchets ambulance

looking in drawing form and That kind of stuff.

I think that's what I mean. There's there's yeah,

there's that there's like for instance Megatron's

head Nothing against what was already previously

there. I just like the one that's on Page eight

better, but yeah Yeah, cuz it's more of the bucket

head. Yes. I like the bucket head Everybody likes

the Buckethead. Buckethead. More G1 -esque, let's

say. Yeah. I really like what they came up with,

though. I really like that Megatron. For the

series, at least. Yeah, I don't think this show

would have had the popularity it got if it was

called Transformers Hero. It would have been

Heroes, not Hero. Heroes. Well, it says in here,

on page 11, it says Transformers Hero. Well,

that must be a typo, because it was Heroes. Right.

I don't know. I mean, I remember when the first

leaks came out. I was covering the coverage of

it, too. Yeah, it was a Hero. I heard Heroes,

but... See, that just doesn't sound right. Maybe

to you. He rose he rose and did what? Yeah You

know one of the things I really love about both

of these books, but Simply because of the the

first volume is mainly the first two seasons

of the show During the show you don't always

get to see every little detail on the robots

And I love the fact that they have all these

model images Full model full color images of

optimus and all the characters and all his you

know his different facial expressions and all

his different trailers The dump truck trailer

that we never actually saw truck the g1 the fire

truck trailer. Yeah, yeah No, it's very cool.

Maybe they Again somehow got all these images

that were I'm assuming designed for the show

That were I mean a lot of these were used I mean

the back of ratchet the back of his ambulance

mode most of the vehicles and they're there the

You know the cab where people would actually

sit and drive All of these images that were used

in the show that were just you know blinking

you'll miss it You know, they pulled them out

and they displayed them here in all their glory

Yeah, I'm sure that Derek had a lot of you know

passed a lot of this stuff over to Jim Sorenson

I believe when I talked to Jim Sorensen, he said

that he handled most of the visuals, most of

the imagery, and Bill Forster handled most of

the story in the book, as far as writing the

bios and stuff like that. What about you, Steve?

What are you like so far going into the book,

the first volume? Well, some of the information,

I find it interesting. But ultimately I like

it for seeing the designs that they threw to

everything and the variations thereof. Yeah.

So being a past comic reader, I would have to

say that I like the imagery that I'm seeing in

here more so over the information. So like if

something strikes my attention, then of course

I'm going to read about it. It's just nice to

see all the different variations that they had

going on through here. Did Prowl ever use his

tuning fork in the show? I think he did once.

The seismic staff. I just noticed that. I'm like,

wait, that's a tuning fork. What the hell? I

like being able to see all the different, you

know... Aspects of bumblebee even though I still

don't care for the character. I like being able

to see it in slow -mo without having to get a

Stock transformation scene to learn how to transform

form the toy There's one page in here It doesn't

actually have a page number. I'm like to point

out the pages actually, but There's 57 that actually

has bumblebee and all the different lighting

So it's like you know you have him in the dark

you have him under blue light under red light

Yeah, and it actually looks like a page just

covered in Bumblebee repaints, but it's in fact.

It's it's bumblebee just under different lighting

conditions Yeah, yeah, that's kind of cool though.

I thought it was terribly cool. Yeah I think

Out of all of the character bios in this volume,

my favorite is seeing Jazz. Just seeing all the

different visuals of Jazz. One of the things

I really love about this book is talking about

the bios and stuff is how they had other characters,

like you have Sentinel Prime writing Jazz's bio,

talking about Jazz. To me, when I first read

these bios, when I first got this book, oh...

God, however long ago it came out. When I was

reading the bios, it's funny, I can actually

hear, sadly, Sentinel's Prime's voice in my head

talking about jazz. I wouldn't want him flying

around in my head. Okay, what I'm saying is they

really brought the characters to, like you have

Bumblebee writing Blur's bio. I could hear Bumblebee's

voice in my head when I'm reading about Blur,

so I'm saying that they brought those characters

that were talking about the other characters

to life in this. Oh yeah, they didn't bring it

down. In most cases, I could see it. In most

cases, you can actually hear it as you read it.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you've watched this enough,

right? You've watched it through all three seasons.

you can tell by just by the way it's written

which character it's supposed to be and then

that voice comes out uh in a few instances you

know i actually had to read to the end to see

who penned it yeah because each one has the uh

you know the author's name at the back at the

back yeah i wish swoop would have used the thermal

mace more in the show if he was actually in the

show more that thermal mace looks awesome on

page 43 again they're all very All the Dinobots

except for Grimlock were very underutilized.

Even Grimlock was underutilized. I mean, he,

uh, I wouldn't say underutilized. I would say

poorly utilized. Yeah. He showed up a lot. I

mean, yeah, he was there quite a bit. Yeah. If

I didn't know any better, I would, I would almost

say that, you know, he had a little, uh, uh,

British influence there, let's say. But no, he

showed up a lot. He just was very poorly used.

I think if Hasbro had actually made a repaint

of Ironhide in the silver armor, I would have

bought that toy. I wouldn't care if it was a

repaint of Cybertronian Ratchet toy. I would

have bought that toy if there was a silver repaint

of Ironhide. But the orange just... We were very

lucky to get the orange toy. So many toys that

we didn't get I mean they're Even repaints the

repaints are a layup and Yeah, we just there's

so many that we just didn't get me a green bumblebee.

How hard would it have been? There's they were

supposed to do that, but we never got it. I know

There's a lot of stuff they were supposed to

do but you know and you know again Well, I want

to say like Goldfire Grimlock and it was at least

one more locked down. It was a jazz repaint that

didn't come out No, the jazz repaint came out

freeway jazz. He was movie colors He was the

silver animated jazz he was movie colors he was

called freeway jazz right, right Okay, I got

him. Who was I thinking of? I'm sorry the blurry

paint. Yeah, the Vortex blurted Vortex blur.

Yeah. Anyway, what it comes on to is As far as

Hasbro is concerned repaints are matter from

heaven, you know, we've already got the mold

All we got to do is print it in a different color.

Yeah No, I don't know. I mean, I think at this

point at the at that point in time The sales

were so low. They just said all right, we're

just gonna Kill this one. Just gonna kill it.

Yeah Yeah, but it happens. Yeah, I Find it funny

that looking at the page out of the corner of

my eye Swindle Scatter Blaster on page 77. When

I first looked at it out of the corner of my

eye, I was like, wait, he has a purple lightsaber?

Because the weapon is on the bottom of the page.

Yeah. Oh, it looks like a lightsaber. Looks like

a giant purple lightsaber on its side. It looks

like the handle. That's funny. This is cool because

you not only get You know pictures of the front

and the back of swindle assault mode the front

and the back of his robot mode You get pictures

of him with all of his weapons deployed Pictures

of you know close -ups of his arm a lot of even

black and white pictures the detail how the weapons

come out of his body It's just just a lot a lot

of detail here. It's a lot of neat stuff to include

And I still wish we had a tape deck sound wave.

I would have bought the hell out of a TFA tape

deck sound wave any day. But he's called Wulves

Wallace Transformers sound wave. What'd you say,

Steve? I said you would. Shut up, you Beast Wars

fanboy. I will kill you. Right. Bastard. There's

no shame in being a Beast Wars fanboy. No. Wait,

Starscream wrote his own bio. Truck that monkey.

That's cuz Starscream is extremely conceited

that's that's true And he's a douche. I love

seeing the the clones in here The the Seeker

clones Because it shows clone 3 3 7 0 3 1 8 which

is sky warp and it shows the ramjet clone as

well I just love that they added those and it

shows slipstream and and all the other clones

as well I just I just really like that that they're

showing off each one individually that they're

taking the time to write a bio for each individual

toy Yeah, that's pretty cool. I like yeah, I

like all the different colors Locked down in

his poncho on page. Yeah, that's funny Page 88

You gotta think that's gonna be like 80 feet

of fabric. Yeah, you would think so. He's tall.

When did Sari ever have sunglasses in the show?

At night. Those are like goggles. Yeah, but I

never saw those goggles on her in the show. Oh,

I don't know. I remember when she showed up with

the hockey gear. But not so much the cold weather

gear. Yeah. Well, the cold weather gear came

in the camping episode. Oh, OK. So maybe the

goggles were OK. Maybe they were used. I just

just it's weird because seeing them on the page,

I don't remember them in the show. Where's the

context? Exactly. And they show some Dax head

without the stripe and then with the stripe.

That's nice We're seriously gonna go through

this page my page Hey two more pages till professor

princess. Yeah, we're skipping that page that

paper doesn't exist professor princess PhD Have

your professor princess moment go ahead. Oh,

they've got a half a page of angry archers weapons.

Yeah, this is cool and Then after the bios it

gets into all of the stories and and this that

and the other thing master He said headmaster

Goes into the events of what happened. I believe

these are all comic events What are we what I

really love is how they should they're they're

showing off different colors of black arachnia.

That's awesome On page 117 oh, okay, let me catch

up here. Yeah, these are the Yeah, these are

from the comics. All these pages now are from

the Arrival comics. Yeah. Oh, are they? Yeah.

No. No, like - Yes? No, like page 113, 114, 115.

These are episode rundowns, aren't they? Right.

But the next page, where Black Arachnia's multicolor

is, it says, the Arrival number four, a few loose

strands by Marty Eisenberg. Oh. Oh, I thought

this was just stuff that they put together. No.

Ha ha, she's got Starscream's crown. Ha ha, yeah.

I love on the next page where it's talking about...

Sorry. I was just... I love on the next page

where it has the episode seven rundown of the

thrill of the hunt. On the page opposite that,

it has Swindle's ledger. This is so cool. Oh

There we go And it gives you prices and amounts

and and personally it's for There's an evaluation

form about optimist that's really cool And it's

got the old -school tech spec, yep, that's awesome

Yeah, it does. Nice. You know, actually on the

opposite page you can get an example of this,

but what's really awesome is that they show a

lot of the painted backgrounds. Yep. Because

a lot of the times in the show, you know, you

can get lost just looking in the backgrounds.

They gloss over them so quickly that it's hard

sometimes, but they're They turn out really nice.

You got a page from your favorite character's

diary all in pink. Oh, professor. Guess who's

on the other page? Yeah, I know, I saw it. The

pinata. And I remember when we pointed out the

pinata in that review. That was funny. Good times.

Monster from Mars. Yeah. Oh, I forgot his name

It's another pretender Skull Grand I think yeah,

I think that's what it was Yeah, I'm getting

old don't begrudge me Wait, there's a love letter

to small that there's a letter to start to some

dad from sorry How far ahead are you I'm on page

138 139 garbage garbage. I am Rick gar. Oh You're

way here. I'm like 127 mega trans encrypted internal

log. He's talking about Stella Healy the kickboxer

comes saboteur Don't remember this this must

be from a comic book. It's probably from one

of the comics. Oh, it's the arrival number three.

Okay Yeah, let's say I don't recognize this at

all, but she looks kind of cool. Yeah, she does

The story of garbage Oh's Futritional facts,

are you serious? Okay. I know TFA has its own

language and its own culture But futitional facts,

really? Fuel -titional? Yeah, fuel -titional.

Jeez. Pimp my bulkhead. Oh, this is so awesome.

Memoirs of a Magnus, Chapter 39. I'm going to

have to go back and try to find these comics

because these look just hilarious. Hadn't realized

they had comic reviews interspersed in here.

Yeah, but that's uh, that's really cool on Page

150 on page 150 it has the Titan magazine stuff

They have an iron man, but afterburn I'm skipping

what's this stuff here Oh, yeah 150 Yeah Where

it says Titan magazines? Oh, yeah, these are

the British ones Yeah, those crazy Brits Simon

Furman. There's our Grimlock maniac Yeah, oh

there's afterburn yeah, you know when afterburn

first came out there was a lot of talk about

him being side swipe Yeah, and they're like,

oh it's animated side swipe and then they need

to have to burn for some reason. Yeah Who fights

off a deadly rage virus? Oh God, can we just

not rehash that little storyline over and over

again? Let's not. One thing I want to bring up

is something that Michael and I kind of didn't

really argue over but we were I was sure and

he wasn't If you look on page 160 There is models

of sentinel Cybertronian form that is so not

a snowplow on him He did have a different Cybertronian

form. It was more of a Armored like a like an

APC type of bad ring ram not a snowplow. Oh,

that looks cool. That looks really cool I wish

I kept that for the earth mode. I like that better

than his earth mode. Yeah, yeah It's a toy mode

almost looks like a almost like a a head Yeah,

like the Beast Machines Megatron head That's

yeah with no arms or no late in those spider

legs on it. Yeah. Yeah See so you take Sentinel

primes? Cybertronian mold and just set it right

on top of your your headless fort max and you'd

be good to go Yep, but he'll get shot before

then and die Let's talk about our favorite season

of the year Halloween age 171 71 He was just

flying ahead and I'm just leafing through here

leisurely looking at the pages It's been a while

since I've actually looked at this book This

came out a few years ago. Well, the only bit

of art in here I like on the Halloween part is

Bumblebee. Yeah Bumblebee looks great. Count

Bumblebee -a -leela All right here we go pages

176 177 we have design evolution Ultra Magnus

basically white repainted optimus that looks

really cool I was going to use that out honestly

instead of the the or had when Magnus got damaged

badly I wish they would have went to this design

and break off the shelf be like Now normally,

I am more so in toy form rather than animation

form. I am severely against the way they've done

Ultra Magnus since the beginning of Transformers

Toys, which he's basically a white Optimus Prime

with a bunch of armor. I've never liked that,

but just seeing TFA Optimus painted white like

this, I really like that design. And of course...

You know who you can blame for that though? Uh,

who? Dreamwave comics. Oh, yeah, that was yeah.

Well, they were they were the first ones to you

know, it was basically a comic book where I Forget

I think it was shockwave that supposedly killed

Ultra Magnus, but instead of dying You just shedded

the armor Yeah, he shed the the whole thing broke

apart and this white out from his prime popped

out and it's like oh and at the time It's like

that's the coolest thing ever And then after

you know one of the biggest crux and toy exactly

it's like it's like well We could just make a

black repaint, but we could paint them white

make them ultra Magnus I Like white and blue

scheme. I think it's cool. I would have bought

that toy But then like right next to him. Look

who you find. It's a shattered glass motor master.

Oh Or I should say you find motor master But

he looks like shattered glass prime He's in the

green and the purple. Yeah This is what motor

master was always meant to be motor master was

not meant to be a garbage truck damn it Now the

one thing about this page that I'm kind of really

digging on because I again like you Michael I

haven't looked at this in in a while. I have

like looked paid by page by page in a while Yeah

on optimus's heads heads that they have here.

I like how they almost gave him a beast wars

optimal Face thing right? Yeah, he's got like

a nose plate and a chin plate with like a mouth

in between Yep, I like that. That's cool and

for Kevin who is not here and Kevin won't actually

be in this episode because I don't think he's

ever even seen these books Originally Prowl was

going to be white and they show it here and he

looks they should they should have kept him white

Now he looks it looks good Oddly there was actually

a Japanese repaint of Prowl in this color scheme,

right? It looked awesome. That's the Tokyo It's

some special Tokyo exclusive fair thing. Yeah,

it's on their annual Tokyo toy fair for like

55 bucks. Yeah Yeah, I don't want to pay 55 bucks

for a repaint, but it looks really good. We'll

leave it at that And again, as you said, Michael,

about, you know, when you're watching the show,

you don't always, for me, I know, like I noticed

the backgrounds, but it's not like I'm paying

attention to the story. I'm paying attention

to the action. And chapter eight or chapter six

of this book is they're showing you all the different

areas of Detroit. And I really liked it. They're

actually showing you the background shots in

here. Right. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of gorgeous

art. Yep. So I'm gonna put a lot of time into

this. It's just really well Derek a lot of time

into it But yeah, do you think oh, I mean, I

don't get Derek did the character designs But

I don't think it was Derek doing the backgrounds

I'm not sure what he did. Well, I know he was

doing character design, but I mean right maybe

he did all the backgrounds He maybe he painted

all these I don't know But somebody I mean somebody

with a very unique style You know did a really

nice job on these what do you think of the background

images Steve? I think that they're actually highly

detailed for You know for for one nobody really

paid attention to it in the show right It's a

shame. I don't know it looks really well. I mean

compared to the rest the animation of the show

I'd say that They should have gone with this

more, I don't know, nicer animation of detail.

Yep. But overall, I mean these are... Volume

1 gives you a lot of great details of Season

1 and Season 2. It gives you a lot of great information.

For me personally... I can't read the episode

recaps because of the fact that it's a black

page with bright green lettering. I mean, it's

not that I don't want to read them. I would love

to read them, but I just can't. It's a little

hard on the eyes. Yeah, it's very hard on the

eyes. Yeah. I'll buy that. For a dollar. For

a dollar. I'll buy that for a dollar. You know,

I love all the settings of like the Decepticon

base the Autobot base some deck tower on the

outside They have two pages of cars Yep, it's

like two pages of earth denizens Two pages of

cars. It's like, you know, it's cool because

they use this stuff in the show But at the same

time it's like wow, you know They're just digging

for filler here when they... You know, a whole

page of stupider animals. Yeah, they actually

say stupider organics. It's like, here's a bird,

and a cat, and a dog, several dogs. Twelve cows,

a monkey. This is something worth pointing out.

It's like page 193. They talk about being in

the city. From the 2008 BotCon. That was a lot

of fun. That was a For those who weren't sitting

in on it Chris ho Vangelis who did the voice

of a shockwave That was the first time I met

him that year. I was like who the hell is this

guy? Why is he doing the voice of shockwave,

but he did a really good job. Yeah Overall volume

one is done up very well. It pretty much encompasses

all all of the first two seasons stuff Do you

have a favorite page or a favorite thing that

they put in this book, Steve? I wouldn't say

I have any particular one thing that's my favorite,

but I do like the fact that they show in here

different variations of what the characters could

have looked like, all the detailed settings without

characters in them. It's I mean that not only

is it nice backdrops in there, but I mean I just

like all the art I mean, I know the information

is is great, too But like I said the the art

is what catches me and I mean despite You know

me not caring for most of the actual cartoon.

I do have to give props that they did some things,

right? What about you Michael Yeah, I'll have

to go with Steve there is that the art in this

book is just really really amazing In fact, I

would I would go so far as to say that I don't

necessarily need all of the Episode synopsises,

you know, although, you know, the episode synopsises

are nice because you have art from each episode

in there right, but It's not as much as you're

gonna get from you know, the character details

or in the back of the book You've got all all

the backgrounds. Yeah, in fact, I uh, Well, that's

funny my wife the school teacher she got me the

I was looking for the word scholastic on I don't

see it. It's a smaller book It's a very small

book and it's just a you know, she she got it

for me thinking that this was the full version

And she's like look what I got you and it's it's

really cool. It's about a hundred pages you know,

but it's got all of the character art and a lot

of the I Don't want to say well, no, actually

it's just character art. Yeah, so it covers the

character art But I mean as far as an art book

goes, it's pretty amazing. Yeah it is It's really,

really neat. Oh, it only goes up to, yeah, page

103 of the actual full size one. But for me,

the cool thing about the full size is once you

get past like page, here we go, yeah, like page

194, we get in chapter seven settings where we

have, again, all this gorgeous background art.

Yep. One of the funniest things for me, and I

just now notice this because I'm looking at the

back of the book, on the UPC code it says, not

intended for children under 13. Okay, I know

it's a big, I know it's a big 220 page heavy

ass book, but there's nothing graphic in here.

I mean there, I mean this... Thing isn't you

know an nc -17 movie or something like that.

I think it might be the reading level Probably

might be referring to because I mean just just

looking through all this green text. That's hard

to read on the dark background Yeah, uh, but

yeah a lot of big words Just a lot of big words,

but no I uh, I don't know. I mean, maybe there's

you know, 10 year olds that are reading at a

13 year old level I'll enjoy it more but But

the scholastic version, just leafing through

what bit of text there is, interspersed within

among all the character art, it's not terribly

difficult to read. But then again, I think most

of this is written to sound like other characters.

So in most cases, you're not going to get a lot

of big words out of some of these characters.

If that makes sense. No, that makes perfect sense.

Yeah, I mean it's a second to third grade book.

So yeah And I think it's nice that they did that

and they condensed it. So, you know kids at a

younger age Whose parents might get them to watch

the cartoon can actually see it as well without

having to you know have this big heavy book now

one of the greatest things about this book is

you know, most books will have words of praise

or Acclaim. The reviews. Hard to believe that

a couple of organic humans put this volume together.

It'll surely help me make Magnus someday. Sentinel

Prime. I like Sunstorm's review. Yeah, hold on.

A superlative showcase of early 22nd century

Detroit and I don't say that just because I own

a substantial share of the publisher's stock.

Border Seapowl. And of course, this is actually

where our our clip of Grimlock actually came

in as soon as I saw this book good That's where

I had David do podcast good as soon as I saw

that that's where I got the podcast good from

And lockdown says this here guide is invaluable

in sussing out any potential quarries worth its

weight in upgrades This book ain't bad, it could

stand a bit more of me, but other than that,

pretty good. Bumblebee. And then Sunstorm. What

a brilliant book. Probably the best I've ever

read. Human or Cybertronian. I can't recommend

it strongly enough. I just love that character.

Yeah, Sunstorm is awesome. So we are gonna take

a quick break and then we're gonna get into a

volume two Podcast good We are back and we are

here talking about the all spark almanacs this

time. We're gonna talk about volume two Now this

cover I love You got retgar you got bumblebees

sorry are the three main main characters And

then you've got them playing with other characters

toys. And you've got toy boxes strewn throughout.

This cover is awesome. Yeah, I like the toys.

They have the toys in there. I like the fact

that everything's covered in those little plastic

toys. I hate those things. I hate those things.

Did you notice the little sound wave popping

his head up around the box? Yeah, I did. That's

funny. Yeah, that's awesome. Now this book is

slightly different than Volume 1 because for

me, when I read Volume 1, I thought Volume 1

was going to be everything. Mmm, right. I didn't

yeah, I you know when I get to the end of volume

one the first time I look through it I'm like

wait Where is season three what the hell? You're

missing a big chunk. Yeah. Yeah, I was like wait

a second you guys are missing a big chunk of

stuff here and and I didn't realize that they

were saving it for a second volume and here we

have the second volume this is basically broken

up into two sections part one is The season three

stuff and then part two is all about the toy

design, the animation, season four, the toy gallery,

packaging art, and the cast. And you have a lot

of the main characters on the opposite page here.

You got Optimus, Prowl, Ratchet, Bumblebee, Bulkhead,

Grimlock, all that stuff. Very, very awesome.

Whereas in the previous book, Derek J. Wyatt

wrote the forward, in this one, Matt Youngberg

is writing the forward. So that's very cool.

Let's see. There's your Roadbuster Magnus in

animation form. Actually, I was looking ahead

later on at the toy designs, where they're actually

showing early prototypes of some of the toys.

and Oddly the oh these are the hero jet twins

apparently the jet twins appeared in the original

version which was the Transformers hero and Honestly,

they they don't look nearly as crap as a is the

Animated version that came out did actually don't

look that awful I so wish the Shadowblade Megatron

toy looked like this animation model on page

10. Oh, the repaints? Yeah. The animation model,

yeah. I so wish the Shadowblade Megatron looked

like this repaint of Megatron. That would have

been cool to see him look like that in the show,

honestly. Oh, yeah. Of course, so would it have

been of half these other characters shown right

here. He looks very Tron. That's what I like

about it. Yeah hence Megatron Like the swindle

repainted the red and gray swindle it doesn't

look nearly g2 enough for me, but Yeah, still

very cool. Well, I like those you get the animation

models here early on but then when you get to

the second half of the book and toys They actually

show the you know, the toy repaints at least

the ones that they want they made Right yeah,

yeah, it's just a lot of good stuff here If only

wheeljack was in this series more oh, man I know

I know we're getting a prime version a transformers

prime toy of wheeljack I know we've got generations

wheeljack, and that's all well and good, but

man does animated wheeljack looks so awesome

Yeah, don't get me started on prime wheeljack.

Oh Stop it Yeah, it's like oh IDW wouldn't give

us the rights to drift so We'll make our own

Mary Sue with swords. Hey He's not anyway, we'll

get to that way later. Well, we'll get to that

in 2014 people My only real complaint about season

3 I Never saw Rodimus in car mode in the animation

But they have it here in the book and that's

just awesome. It looks like Rodimus Of course,

it looks like well, the thing is though is I

would expect Rodimus to have a more Cybertronian

Car or Cybertronian alt mode and here it's clearly

a car Well, they were homaging obviously for

yeah, but you know G1 he's a Cybertronian car

which just makes no sense Especially when you

look a couple pages earlier and all the other

Cybertronians have Cybertronian modes Yeah. Oh,

you know, I take that back. Look wheel jack has

wheels. Yeah wheel jack has wheels this preceptor

Well, technically they all have wheels but not

like Earth wheels. Yeah They're they're round,

but they're not earth wheels. Um It's something

this this series really It doesn't make up for

what this character was in Armada, but it made

him a hell of a lot cooler, which is hot shot.

I Love hot shots out mood in this No, it looks

about the same True it does. It's animated style.

I never liked the hotshot character. I Okay,

I for like the five seconds that he's in season

3 episode 1 the train or I mean He's only he's

only in there is an homage. He's oh, yeah, he's

in there. I don't mind him there But yeah, you're

right the hotshot character and Armada can go

to hell More so burn in hell and die. Oh, yeah,

I like the brawn He's like a short and squat

and just yeah. Yeah, you get he got fat in his

old age. That's funny. I Would have loved to

have seen a toy of this red alert That looks

awesome. I Think if they had kept red alert as

a main character as opposed to going with Ratchet

we would have gotten a very cool toy. Yeah, and

I wonder if maybe They went with a ratchet because

they couldn't figure out how to get a red alert

to transform maybe I Know what I like is the

the In the character art here, they show her

arm or I should say her hand is Kind of ends

and in like a gun type of thing. Yeah, but that

is uh it's the same hand extension that Our motto

red alert head. Yeah, so it all ties together.

Yeah And of course on page 27 warpath again,

we needed a warpath animated toy. Oh my god,

I Don't know, you know, honestly if you look

at this toy and you compare it to like generations

warpath Or you look at this figure and you compare

it to the toy of generations warpath very similar

Someone was you know, basically keeping this

in mind when they designed that toy, you know

Like Beachcomber Yeah Beachcomber apparently

wasn't a favorite of certain people on this show

These spray looks awesome. Oh It's Kevin inner

tube I Think it's funny that they included like

die Atlas and Sky Gary in here because I don't

think these two made it into the show Don't they

might have made it into like a crowd scene, but

I don't think they actually had an actual appearance

I think their heads appeared in Yoki Tron's you

know dojo yeah as but they were just You know

like bus. It was a sculpture. They didn't actually

show the rest of the figure Hey kids look. It's

me Mario and my brother Luigi Pipes and hover.

Yeah. Yeah, they have a botanica and a wheelie.

Yep. They were never in the show. No, I kind

of like the way we really might have been in

a crowd scene, but I don't think Botanica was

in the show at all. No, not at all. I would I'm

surprised that a character like Botanica would

fly because she's literally, you know, that's

her thing. She's a plant lady. She's half a plant.

She's an organic. And that would have made everyone

else on the planet go into a complete tizzy.

Yeah, I love cosmos tracks and mirage those three

look amazing Yeah, we did see tracks in in trans

warped, but he was only in robot mode for a second

But toys of tracks and and and mirage those would

have been awesome you know if you look at the

figure and the to a certain extent the car mode

there he looks an awful lot like Oh Blur no,

I'm thinking nitro prime and I forget what name

they gave nitro prime in the in the u .s. Nightwatch

optimus no in Japan there was a character named

nitro prime and in the u .s. They turned it into

a girl and And it was me. I forget what they

named her in the u .s. but Some of these other

ones that are in here are so weird to me like

light bright They know that this is shit. They're

making up. Yeah, I mean like like like the the

throttle bots chase and freeway and search light

those positive those weren't in the in the show

and then like flare -up was in the show like

volks and Carrera these are these are like Argentinian

bumblebee repaints that they're just like Let's

go ahead and throw that in there, just for the

hell of it. But by the time you get in the, yeah,

by the time you get in the, like, light bright

and lickety split, uh, these were, these are

toys that they made up. And, and I think, I think

they, uh, they said that they were gonna let

Mongo name them. And Mongo wanted to name them

after, uh, My Little Ponies. So you end up with

lickety split. And then and then light bright

it turned out there was something there's a lot

my little pony that sounded like light bright

or something But they couldn't get the rights

to that. They couldn't say it, you know, there's

a trademark issues So they settled on light bright

which worked just as well because that's the

name of an eight like an old 80s toy So, you

know you get extra kudos there Okay, so first

of all, I'm gonna talk about The animals first

and then we'll go back to that pink thing that

supposedly saved you one And Ram horn now the

problem I have was showing steel jaw in this

book is steel dry and ram horn specifically we

never had a blaster in the show and We know We

never had you know sound waves adversary in the

show at all Think the human error two -parter

and sound and fury if you had made those three

episodes Blaster versus sound wave they would

have been fans would have liked them a lot more

I Think maybe we would have seen that like season

4 maybe I've heard of this Rosanna thing for

two or three years now someone please explain

this to me Explain what now the fact that everyone

says Rosanna is gonna save g1. I don't get this

It was part of the Japanese Storyline behind

the vinyl tech So yeah, you have Ravage right

Who is who is a it was a vital tech car? He there

was actually a purple Corvette I think no no

that wasn't ravage there was yeah, it was a purple

black Corvette that transformed into into a a

robot with the Jaguar head which was ravage and

then later on they had a Jaguar car that transformed

into a rope into a beast mode Jaguar Okay, and

they were both supposed to be ravaged so the

idea there in Japan there was a whole storyline

there were ravage from the future Came back into

the past and was interfering with the the vinyl

tech production Something along those lines.

It's like it's like Beast Wars ravage Didn't

really die, but he was stuck in cassette mode

and then somehow got sent back into the past

Where he reformatted his body into a car Something

along those lines and somewhere Rosanna stopped

it. Oh At least I think that's how it went. I

don't know. Well, maybe one of the listeners

maybe dog dog from TFW or somebody I know dog

dog loves the Rosanna thing So maybe someone

can explain it to us in an email or something

Sorry is protoform in the Design stage 9. Well,

I mean the the full art it just looks weird.

I Forget how I described it in the show. What

did I call it? Encephalitis baby head or something

It's creepy looking You know and then you get

wasp um... with his earth car mode basically

just a repaint of bumblebee. I want this toy

so bad. We're completely glossing over the two

pages of sorry gadgets. Yeah that's because we've

kind of already made fun of the sorry gadgets.

Do we really need two pages for sorry gadgets?

Apparently so. We got two pages of wasp. Really

need to I mean honestly, there's like One is

his own is his before inator form and the other

is post inator Well, there's there's an entire

there's an entire pages here of You know background

between The love interest between Doug bass and

like flare up or something That they completely

chucked they couldn't even include that because

they didn't have enough space and yet we have

two pages of sorry fingers So, I don't know man.

I feel a little cheated Do you read Jim Sorensen's

blog? No, I will read it every now and then but

it's not something that I read as much as I love

Jim Sorensen He's an awesome guy. I Don't know.

I just I only go there when when stuff is pointed

out to me Well, he recently wrote like a huge

chunk of behind -the -scenes Yeah Specifically

for this book and how you know he wrote half

of them and the co -other author wrote the other

half and how they traded the The bios back and

forth like I like this character and you like

that character and nobody wanted Doug bass But

apparently after after a while they they started

writing all this stuff that was just you know

off the wall You know, I said like a love interest

between Doug Bass and the flare -up or somebody

and They ended up cutting it. They couldn't include

it because I did not have enough room in the

book Yeah, let's go back and read that on his

blog it's a lot it was very interesting I love

behind -the -scenes stuff Yeah, I would have

to say my favorite part out of the entire volume

two at this point is page 50 and 51. Two pages

of cyclonus. It's not really two pages. I mean,

it's a, if you look at it as an open book, it's,

it's one whole page sample. I mean, it's, you

know. Right. No, it looks good. One page is his

bio and his alt mode and the other page is his

different animatic designs. I don't think they

even showed most of this in this, in the, in

the show. No, he was he was in the show for about

half a second blink and you miss it Yeah, pretty

much. So now it's just gold right here the fact

that they included it all yeah now one of the

things that a lot of people have said and I've

even I've even said this the Not classics crap

universe Is it Challenge at Cybertron? Yeah.

Challenge at Cybertron 3 -pack, where it's a

repainted universe cyclonus to be more G1 -ish

colors, the more regular cyclonus purple that

he is. As soon as I saw this page, and I saw

his two swords that are on this page, I'm like,

as much as I don't like third party stuff, one

of these third party companies needs to make

cyclonus swords for that generation's version

of cyclonus. Yeah. It does look very cool. Steve,

you haven't said much. What do you like about

the art in this one or what do you like so far

out of part two before we get to the toy stuff?

I like that some of the characters they show

on this one compared to the previous one and

some of the descriptions of some of the season

three characters such as like Cyclonus and Wasp

and... Various characters that you see very limited

limited versions of yeah, I like the variations

and some of them like sound wave and Some of

the homages that are in here mm -hmm such as

reflector straxas The straxas but overall like

they're all pretty decent, but there's a lot

of Like throw away characters in here That have

nothing to do with the show stretch Yeah, how

is a stretch? It's one of those toys from the

80s that You just yanked on the arms till they

almost broke. I think it was like oh I was gonna

say there wasn't there a go -bot. There was a

limo. Oh, I don't know probably Remember I've

said this before and I'll say it again Don't

like the sound wave toy Now I know that they

made Three different sound waves they made the

original version they made the electrostatic

and they made the electromagnetic The electromagnetic

never got to retail it only got it only leaked

here and there and I only know I think I only

actually have talked to and know of one guy Who

has the white and green black and purple electromagnetic

sound wave and that's Mitch Santona He's a YouTube

reviewer, but I would have loved the sound wave

toy in those colors. That would be awesome Yeah,

and then the black version is basically sound

blaster and that's awesome as well. The big question

would be Which guitar would that one get? The

electromagnetic. Yeah, I would hope it would

get ratbat because I love ratbat. Oh, actually

I was gonna say he could have gotten a buzzsaw

or you know i think somewhere in here they they

they show an orange ratbat and call him wing

thing which is like really uh really digging

it's some obscure stuff there yep and now we

get into the toy pages wow yeah the takara versions

are super shiny oh you skipped spitter spitter

was disgusting Yeah, it's another one of those

characters though that you didn't even see his

entire robot mode. But here they've got the whole

thing front and back. Not only that, but they

repaint him in the slapper, which I think is

awesome. What I really love about this is page

64. This is another one of my favorite parts

of this book. Yatter. Yatter? Yes, yatter page

64 report to me It's basically the Transformers

animated version of Twitter and it's basically

It's basically total ownage 42. It's basically

headmaster Trending Yats, that's awesome. That's

nothing yet Freaking rule short -packed It's

funny frenzy is red the rumble is blue rumble

is blue frenzy is red Blue is purple frenzy is

red. I like ravaged kitty. Yeah ravaged kitty

That's funny But no the toy design on these and

all these All these additional things that are

in here about the the Japanese stuff is just

awesome That's yeah, oh the Japanese toys no,

there's a couple of Japanese looking ads It's

on page 78 79 It's kind of like a Japanese newspaper,

I think. I don't know, it's some sort of newspaper.

Jumping way ahead there. You didn't mention anything

about the several pieces of sentinel on page

70, which I thought was kind of cool. Well, we

already saw him without his head, I mean... Sentinel

without his head? Yeah, when his head got lobbed

off by a motor - not a motormaster, a headmaster.

I'm sorry, you know, I I flipped that entirely.

I'm an ultra Magnus. Oh, yeah, you know page

70 to prove me wrong like whoa That's ultra Magnus

after you got shot by shockwave. Yeah, that's

kind of disturbing tired I'm actually trying

to get to the actual snow. There's like several

pages of fake magazine here. Yep A bunch of fonts,

a bunch of different fonts with the Autobot and

Decepticon names on them, which is pretty cool.

On page 87, what looks to be like a TFA Bumblebee,

one of those stupid things. Oh, God. Pogs. Looks

like a bubble - Pog that you would throw and

whatever. Oh. you know this is oh you know I

was gonna say this was the first time that I

think that individual characters got their own

stylized you know name yeah thing but that's

not entirely true that they started that in the

transformers movie oh yeah yeah so I mean that

was not not the good one but the one that came

out in 2007 so yeah Yeah, I mean, Optimus Prime

had his own name. It didn't look like this, but

it had flames and stuff. Bumblebee had his own

name and it looked like, you know, some urban

kid spray painted on a wall or something. Look,

there's snake eyes. Are you skipping ahead already?

Yeah. Totally missed the rock creature and the

space bridges. Yeah, the space bridges. Oh, the

scooter jet pack. Yeah, yeah, that was awesome

the Thanatos class ship. I have no idea what

this is a great war game Yeah Yeah, a lot of

this stuff is really really weird and yeah, you're

getting really deep into this stuff now Again

another one of my favorite it favorite things

in this is seeing the purple shockwave Design

like that. That's awesome Here is a page 104

105. They actually go through all of the bus

in Yoko Tron's dojo Yeah, and and who they are

and what they did That's awesome. That is cool.

Cuz you know, there's a lot of people speculating

like what is this guy and what is that guy and

a lot of these ended up being like Japanese toys

that no one had ever heard of well, you know

people who Who know about the Japanese shows

would have heard like star upper star saver diatlas

and sky gary It's like who the hell are all these

guys, but they're uh You know grandest they're

heavy load. They're all japanese toys Yeah Stellar

cartography That's there's almost like a star

trek term it is yeah, yeah Page 106 swing thing.

It's an orange. Yeah. Yeah the rap Oh and a sunder

buzz song I'll take sunder Sundaurs awesome.

I am Yes, that is cool. And I wonder where they

get all these names in the stellar cartography.

I mean, there's an awful lot of Planets listed,

you know, some of them are transformer ish like

there's Up in the upper right, there's a planet

called the Zarek. It's just really cool what

they did with this. When I heard that they were

making a volume two, I was like, okay, outside

of season three, what else are they going to

put in it? I didn't know at the time that they

were going to put all this other stuff in it.

It's just so cool. New Texas. There's a planet

called We Made It. There's a planet Scarow, which

I'm assuming is where the Daleks are from. Planet

Doom. Planet Blot. That's funny. Where's Scar

or Junk? It should be the planet Junk. There

it is planet junk, there's the beast planet.

Well, this is cool. I Haven't looked at any of

this yet. So this is kind of a neat thing Nintendo

It's a Nintendo planet. There's char in strikers

domain. Oh, that's cool Okay, I gotta turn this

There's a planet Eternia, yep Okay. Yeah, I'm

just having too much fun with this. I'm gonna

have to turn the page and keep going Sorry, you

know, I just got this book in the mail like a

week ago because I didn't I didn't get it when

I originally came out But I wanted to you know

have us before we did this podcast. Yeah It's

uh, it's just been a lot of fun to look at. There's

a lot of neat stuff in here planet Vespa There's

the Rigel system they get sticks SETI alpha the

planet of goo right next to the planet of junk

Well, of course the planet of goo and planet

of junk would be next door to each other record

owns both of them Airlandia I Wonder if there's

an Alderaan new Texas Like the planet if we made

it Is that actually in there that isn't there?

Yeah, it's the planet of we made it and then

Yeah, a couple below that scarrow Scarrow Sturgos

yeah, so they pulled from a lot of different

nebulas Yeah, yeah, Tessa. There's a lot of a

lot of battle planets in here Nexus zero You're

familiar with this battle planet. Next is Zero

ties into the... Beast Wars. The other, no not,

well not just Next is Zero in Beast Wars but

it also ties into some of the other stuff of

what the hell is that other series called that

never made it. Don't know I don't know fucking

I don't care Just reading way too deep into what

I didn't notice until just now is that there's

a key on the bottom of a page from 14 that actually

tells you if it's a robot planets or organic

planet Decepticon world Autobot world, you know

whose territory it lives in VAC territory. Yeah

Oh, oh Protoss is right in the middle. That's

Valk and Nexus zeros right in the middle. That's

all Valk area Yeah, it's kind of neat. I kind

of But I was gonna say page 119, you know whole

half page view of bentroplex Yeah, which is so

cool. This is so awesome the toy you'll never

have Oh, an animated Metroplex? Yeah. It looks

enough like G1 Metroplex that I think I already

own this one. Alright, moving on to part two,

which is the toys. There's a forward on this

by Eric Siebenheiler, so that's awesome. And

this basically shows you all the sketches and

prototype designs of how they went about constructing

the animated toys. Multicolor long -arm shockwave

that looks weird page 164. Oh you judge I haven't

gotten that far yet. I'm still leafing through

the eight pages of Omega Supreme repaints Not

to say it's not cool, but Jesus Pete's they have

a Beast Wars reference Where an unknown locale?

That's it's on a page 139 Oh, I gotta back up

a little bit. Oh, yeah! Don't read too much into

this. I know. They should have done what I said,

dammit. I do like the Sigma Supreme, the Steel

Haven schematics. Yeah, that's awesome. They

so should have made that. This looks a lot like

the GI Joe schematics They should I still think

they should have made the original arc the axel

on the dark side Mmm, and then the steel haven

yeah, I'm so glad I I'm not in on the The toy

production stuff before we actually see final

product. I Don't know. I'm just like I think

it's cool that they show us resin models and

stuff like that, but I just I wouldn't much rather

see the final product. A lot of these didn't

have a final product. I mean, literally, they

only got as far as a resin stage and they said,

yeah, we're never going to make this. Well, Snarl

had a final product. Oil Slick had a final product.

Oh, OK. I see what you're talking about. Shockwave

had the final product, but yet you see him in

resin form. Even though we didn't get the toy,

we can see what Wingblade Prime would look like.

I do like seeing Rodimus in resin form. That's

really cool. RC as well. That looks really cool

as well. RC almost looks like a liter one figure.

I like the prototypes of Shockwave. Yeah, the

prototypes of Shockwave are awesome. Those look

very, very cool. I think I mentioned earlier

I like the the Transformers hero jet twin prototypes

Those look really cool. Those remind me a lot

of the G1 twins and I forget their name but the

like the Subticon they had like pounce and wingspan.

Yeah pounce and wingspan and oh Light speed and

something else For the Autobots? No, that's a

Computron toy. One of those Compubots. I forget.

I forget the Autobots' names, but basically they

looked identical. And then... Well, the G1 didn't

combine, but the combined mode... Fastlane and

Cloudraker were the twins for the Autobots. There

you go. That's right. Okay. But the combined

mode for the hero jet twins looks good. Compared

to the combined mode for the animated jet twins,

which looks like ass painful ass Yeah, I like

seeing You know, it's like as sad as it is that

we didn't get these toys I like seeing that they

put the effort in you know, almost giving it

to us. Yeah And then really for this one as far

as reading this book is really where you get

into, like, you know, where they go into about

the animation, about the prototypes and reading

this versus reading the episode synopsises that

we're in earlier. Yeah. This is really where

I love reading about, like, the sound and the

music and all this and all that. This part of

the behind the scenes book thing. But my favorite

part, page one. Oh, I need some sleep. Page 182,

Season 4. Oh yeah, we gotta talk about 182. Oh,

this is awesome. And it's like, you know, you

get through Volume 1 and you say, okay, you know

what, we're missing the toys here, and we're

missing Season 3, and you know what would be

cool? Season 4. And lo and behold, here we have,

you know... More information about season four

than then you know what we've ever had before

Yeah, we speculate a lot as we know what might

have come in season four but it's it's really

really neat that they You know put down as much

as they had I mean they didn't have they didn't

have a lot They you know, they didn't plan out

the entire season, but from what they had they

showed it here And it's really kind of cool to

see what what could have been oh My god k -on

and link eerie, that's an awesome image Page

183 yeah, yeah That's neat Iron hides earth mode.

Yeah, you're trying to kill us with awesome Now

again as as I've said before I've never no one

I think has ever really liked hot shot But seeing

the hot shot toy design Because it's animated

toy aesthetic. I really like it. I wish we got

this toy Nah, I don't you know we got I don't

want to call it class. It was a classics or generation

hot shot That's just a crap toy. Yeah Just so

unimpressed with that toy. But I do like the

Power Master Optimus Prime. I mean, this is just,

these are just drawings. But I mean, they got

to the design stage. It looks like it would have

made a cool toy. It looks very robots in disguise.

Yeah. But would have made a really cool toy.

The Marauder Megatron because he has a beast

machines Megatron Mask right the the triple changer.

Yeah, I Don't know. I mean as far as triple changers

go it's you know, it's just kind of reminds me

a lot of you know some of the six shot modes

where it's like Okay, it's a jet and then you

fold the wings up and look. It's a car Yeah,

but see I would only get like if they had ever

made that toy I would have only gotten it for

the robot mode just to see the face. Oh, meh.

The face is cool. It's a very Hannibal Lecter,

but I just, you know, can't get on board. And

then the rest of this is pretty much just images

of all the toys we've gotten to this point outside

of like Hydrodive, Bumblebee, and Goldfire Grimlock.

Well... When you get into like page 203 is your

blackout there's your thundercracker eagle fire

Grimlock fugitive waspinator Mercenary swindle

which does look awesome You know mudbuster bulkhead

just don't I don't see the point in that I mean,

it's it's still bulkhead. It doesn't look right

to me But yeah, like wing blade optimus vortex

blur They didn't even get vortex blur in Japan

Yeah, I know vortex blur didn't even come out.

Yeah, it's like screw you guys This is a layup

man, I mean honestly if they I suppose if they

could find people to buy it Yeah, you know, but

yeah I don't know. That's a dead horse. I don't

want to beat anymore. The one thing of the praise

on the back of this book that I really like is

from Swindle. I've donated dozens of these books

to the poor, Protoforms at the minimum security

orphanorium. As part of a charity work, they

just can't get enough. Part of my charity work.

And you can hear it in his voice, too. It's funny

I'm sorry. I wasn't paying attention at all.

I was staring at terrorist drawings the headshot

here on page two Yes, it does talk about the

cast it talks about the crew as well. So Steve

final thoughts on volume two. Um, I Would say

it's a nice addition showing mostly like, you

know, the nice nods and the planets and some

of the backgrounds and some of the other models

of the characters that they came up with. Not

that I really care much for the toy aspect of

it, but I don't entirely discount it either because

it does have some pretty nice stuff in it. Overall,

it's pretty nice. I'd say that, you know, if

you have the first one, you definitely have to

have the second one to complete the whole. Piece

of the show and I really want to get the addendum

at some point as well We probably won't do anything

with that as far as podcast form, but the addendum

is supposed to show you Designs of how they came

up with the stunta con jobs stuff It's supposed

to show you all like that kind of TFA botcon

character stuff. So that's what the addendum

is supposed to be I think that it comes included

with the with the diamond edition of the Stunticon

job, the retail version of the Stunticon job

comic. Right, when they sell it in the stores.

Yeah, yeah. So assuming your store has it and

assuming you have a store. Yes. Final thoughts

on volume two, Michael? Yeah, I mean, I really

like, again, volume one covered everything very,

very well. I mean, everything, everything, even

stuff that you didn't think you needed you know

pictures of the humans pictures of the cars that

were there uh it's like well that's great you

very thorough and then you get into volume two

and it equally thorough uh for the the season

three stuff but then you know that's only half

a book what are you going to do uh then we get

into toys and character models just all sorts

of neat stuff but At what point do they just

start making stuff up? It's like, well, you know,

maybe we don't have enough room. How about, how

about we put stretch in there? And hey, didn't

Derek Wyatt make an animated scalpel? We'll put

him in there too. And, you know, it's just like,

magnificus. Why is there... It's like, why is

there a diaclone colors perceptor, you know,

here at all? And why I, I'm not... I'm not sure

how we got in here. It's kind of cool to see

a repaint of the different characters, so...

That's... Yeah, I suppose, but then you end up

with, like, Straxus? Was Straxus gonna be in

season four and they're just not telling us?

Probably. Is it, like, one of Derek Wyatt's favorite

characters? He just happened to draw one up?

I don't know. Just recently, Derek Wyatt did

a... G to strexus. Yeah, Mara paint up a Did

you bash or whatever of his art? Yeah, and he

yeah, he's all in like leopard print Yeah, it's

it's pretty horrific My final thoughts for volume

2 are pretty much like I love seeing all the

season 3 stuff it It just hurts my brain to even

read the season four stuff because I know we're

never gonna get it I like seeing all the toy

designs even though I'm not really a fan of the

resin models for the most part But all in all

it was a very good read through of information

and backgrounds just behind -the -scenes stuff

So with that, I think we're gonna take another

break and we're gonna come back to close the

show after this. I'm already broken. Transformation

Animation Podcast will be back after these messages.

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