The Cybertronian Enquirer 3.4.07

“Prime Directive by John Rogers”

“Revisions by Roberto Orci & Alex Jurtzman”

I’ve got news for you…stop reading now if you hate spoilers…

So yeah, I finally got a copy of the script. Is it a year old? Yep. Have more revisions been made. I’m sure of it. However, this basically has all the parts you see in the teaser clips. I don’t think any of the “reviews” have really spoiled much of the movie. First off, I’m going to do just that. I’m going to throw in the good, the bad, and the mechanical. Second, if you want a copy then just shoot me an email.

Next on the plate would be the Protoform Optimus and Starscream. I was one of the few to actually snag these bad boys off of Walmart.com. I was actually the last person to do so too…we’ll get to that in a minute.

One of my loyal Primates was able to grab the Magnus/Skywarp two pack for me. In return, he’s playing with his brand new Classics Jetfire toy. Brian, I hope Jetfire looks as pretty on your mantle as he does on mine.

Speaking of hunting, I tried to find more of the Micromaster Aerialbots at Big Lots. No go…they were all sold out. If anyone can find these let me know. I have a buddy who needs them.

Yeah, yeah, it’s been a month since I put out a column. I have no excuses. I’ll try and make it up this week with tons of news and such.

Kollector’s Korner

Crap, where do I begin. How about with this:

That would be Skylynx with Blue Flame Convoy. Flamer is a Lucky Draw Homage to the G1 Skylynx. My buddy Chris has never seen the two side by side, so here it is in all it’s glory. Would you also believed I just found out my Flamer has a backwards hand? Boo….He has two left hands.

Next let’s talk about the Protoforms. How the hell they were up three or four months early is beyond me. All I know is I couldn’t get my browser to the Rock Lord’s page quick enough. I tried to order two of each, but it was a no go. It said it was out of stock after I grabbed one of each. Was it a glitch on the page? Did I grab the last two? I have no clue, but honestly I didn’t care. I was happy to grab these buggers. I was sad to see that I could have more than doubled my money on eBay that same week for them.

Protoform Prime

Protoform Screamer

Am I impressed? Not entirely, but it does feel like I got a piece of TF history before everyone else. I will say the plastic doesn’t feel quite up to par on these two. It actually reminds me of the Star Wars TF plastic. I hope that isn’t the case for the rest of the movie line. They also aren’t very articulated. Yes, they’re on par with a decent toy, but nothing special. Stuff fall off during transformation and the joints are uber stiff. Starscream’s gun also has a spring load trigger, but his instructions state that his weapon doesn’t fire. I’m wondering how rushed these toys were and how different they may be relative to the mass release.

Let’s start with Prime. I think I would like his “meteorite” mode better if they didn’t try so hard to make it look like a truck. What do I mean? Ok, first it has the cab windows. It could be the space ship cab windows, granted, but check out the “wheels.” I’m not talking about the real wheels on the bottom of the toy. Those are for playability. I’m talking about the black circles by the front of the ship and the back. If he’s going to be a meteorite, then let him be a meteorite. We know it’s Optimus. You don’t have to smack us with it. I think his protoform looks great. A little Rock Lordish, yes, but it’s supposed to be what he’d look like if he scanned a meteorite/space ship. If you thought he was going to really look like Prime no matter what he scanned…well, then you’re living in a Dreamwavw world where every TF story is well received. My honest opinion is they went out on a limb. They tried something that hasn’t been tried before. Do they have protoforms in the movie? Yes. Are they imitatable? Of course. Does Hasbro and Takara see dollar signs off of that? ….~smack~

Plus, think about this…what if they created something like a “piecemeal” TF. They give us a “Protoform” and you attach the pieces to make it a TF. For example, you could have a chest plate, arms, legs, and a head that all “snap on” to the protoform. It’d be like that whole Opti-Mash Prime that’s coming out…except cool

The Starscream Protoform has been more well received on the net. I have to agree. The ship is neither as thrown together nor homage-like as Prime’s. The brownish goldish color is a little hard on the eyes. However, we can be thankful the final version doesn’t come with the “red hot facial” that we saw in many of the prototypes. Hey, he took the shot in the eye, not me. I may actually dig the protoform more than the fat ass stealth bomber mode he gets.

What else did I get? Well, Big Bad had tons of Classic figures come in. I got the minicons and the new wave of Legends. The Dirt Digger team is probably my favorite of the bunch. The cycle isn’t great, but the other two kick much ass. I’m glad they are taking more time to create these minicons. We’ve seen a nice transition from “nice vehicle modes with shitty robot modes” into something closer to the micromasters. With that being said, the Predator team is garbage. Dreadwing is the only winner out of that team. The Clear Skys Team rounds out the three groups. These three aren’t bad if you can get past Steel Wind’s boat shoes. I kind of dig Nightscream…

Ok, so I get Menasor and Whirl, but why do we get another Jetfire and Bumblebee? The Voyager and Deluxe versions of the two were damn near perfect. I guess the brains at Hasbro couldn’t think of two better non-duplicate names like of say…Sunstreaker and Silverbolt? Anyway, Menasor is great. He probably should have been Motormaster, but this is close enough. Whirl…I guess I should have mentioned him in “They should have been Classics.” He works for the EVAC mold, but I’d still prefer Sandstorm. Hotshot sort of works for Bumblebee, but horrid choice of Thundercracker for Jetfire. It might reflect his “Skyfire” persona, but I’m still not buying it. Never mind, I already did….

Then there’s Magnus and Skywarp. They’re so pretty. I will admit that I became more of a Magnus mark once DW did the “white Optimus without his armor” Magnus. However, Hasbro has really been killing him and Nemesis. I can’t help but love this guy though. The Classics Optimus mold is a good one, which in turn makes Magnus a good move. Skywarp was brought in to give us “three seekers.” I’m just waiting for Botcon to round out the six seekers.

I also got the Revol Tech Prime and Magnus, but they’re still in their boxes. The figures look uber poseable, but I don’t have any burning desire to open them. They go hand in hand with the Titanium figures…I have Cheetor and the Fallen in front of me in their boxes. Maybe the Fallen will see the light of day…Cheetor might if his fat kitty ass goes on a diet.

Last but not least, I picked up the Classics Grimlock error card. It has Jetfire’s pic with Astrotrain’s name. Sad thing is I don’t even know where I put him…

TNN Headlines
The news articles and pictures come from multiple sources including Transfandom.com, TFW2005, eBay, FantoFan, The All Spark, TFormers, Big Bot, Seibertron, among others. Give these sites a look if you get a chance.

So much info and so little time…where do we begin?

Botcon…they sold out two hotels. Did they have small blocks or are we creating the biggest gathering of dorks in the universe? God, why do I have this sinking feeling that my “Rest Easy” room reservation is going to be null and void?

The TFCC has up minicon bios in the members’ only section. Whoa, that’s some VIP stuff right there…

Remember that whole Binaltech story? There’s the latest chapter translations

The Allspark has up a great photo shoot of Hot Rod. What’s so special about Hot Rod? Well, he’s gold and apparently was only given to Takara employees. Yeah, I want one…

The Transformers/Avengers cross over has been confirmed. Who thinks this is going to be worse than the original GI Joe/TF crossover? I will say that the new TF/GI Joe crossover kicks much ass. The one that has Cobra-La in it…yeah that one. I dug it so much that I tried to buy the GI Joe movie with them in it. I wanted the DVD, but that bastard is running $45 just about anywhere I’ve found it. Anyone want to burn me a copy so I can relieve even more of my childhood?

It’s old news now, but someone put up a lot of TFs on eBay containing four loose G2 Stunticons. I looked up at my mantle with the five G2 Stunticons I own. They looked back at me. I looked at them again…then to my wallet…and to my mortgage payment…and said naaaaaa

Almost thought…almost…

Here’s a really cool Alternator Hoist

And you wanna talk old school? I almost bought this…and then went…”Why?”

The TF game will be coming out with the movie. Here’s some more info on it:

• Protect Or Destroy The Earth – As the TRANSFORMERS robot’s war comes to Earth, gamers make the choice to join the AUTOBOTS in protecting our planet or to join the DECEPTICONS in destroying it. With dual campaigns, the fate of the world is in players’ hands.

• PlayStation® Portable Features – The PSP version features 20 playable AUTOBOTS and DECEPTICONS, from both the live-action film and previous generations, that battle through an enhanced version of the film’s storyline. Players can customize their character by choosing more than 10 different weapon types in both single and adhoc multiplayer gameplay.

Sounds cool to me. Maybe they’ll make a transformable Wii controller or something that you can throw at walls and such…what? It could work

If Prime were an apple he’d be Spoiled

First off, the Sector 7 site has a new password. I believe that makes takara83, thefirst7, and there was one more if I remember right…

Big Bot just posted another one…NBETWO

Second, I got the prequel comic. It revolves a lot around Bumblebee when he could still talk. Ooops, spoiled that one (read below for more info). The highlights are that Prime and Megs rule the planet together. Megs gets a bit power hungry and puts together the Decepticons! Da da daaaa! Remove cheesy sound effects. Prime tries to shoot the Allspark off the planet to make sure Megs doesn’t get it. Bumblebee, along with Arcee, try to fend off a Decepticon attack. Bumblebee knows he’s actually stalling for Prime’s big plan, but Arcee is clueless. The Allspark gets blasted off the planet while Bumblebee makes sure Megs doesn’t immediately go after it. He gets his voice module permanently damaged for it too.

Third, I accidentally bought the Ironhide prototype. How accidentally? Here’s my thing…I don’t normally buy protos. Why? Well, they’re going to be out on the market in a few months anyway, so why pay an arm and a leg? So why did I buy this one? Once in a blue moon I do buy protos. I bought the Alt Swindle proto. Then there was that Megatron and Starscream ATB at Botcon. There was also that whole G2 Stunticon thing that threw the TF community into a panic. Ironhide is in that same boat. Plus, this is the first TF movie prototype figures. That’ll be worth something one of these days…

UPDATE: The excerpt for this column originally said “And can anyone say…Prototype TFTM07 Ironhide?” Yeah, that was before I got something a bit nicer. I was waiting on a Prime or Megs Proto to go up for the movie. Seller SPX has sold me Blackout and “Voyager size” Megatron prototype. Now, I thought he was leader size…and maybe he still is…but I’ve got one of the Megatron prototypes headed my way. Someone over at TFW got a Fast Action Battler Megs. They said the size was close to Voyager Blackout. Damn, that’s a big Fast Action Battler…

Regardless of what it is, I’ll have pics up as soon as I get it. That means we may have another “Kaye’s Kollection: Special Edition” to display Megs, Blackout, and Ironhide.

I’m also working on grabbing Blackout…and maybe Starscream…but I’m just waiting on the Prime and Megs protos to drain my bank account.

Ok, so if you don’t want to know anything about the movie then skip this section. I know there are the Rogers of the world who prefer to see it on the big screen and not know anything about it. Me? I’m more of a “read the spoilers and see how it turns out on the big screen.” Now, I obviously am not going to go over every detail, but I think there is some stuff to go over. Also, if you have read this script then I apologize for jumping around a bit. Some things happen before others, but you’ll get the point.

The movie starts kind of like the Dream Wave #0 started. Megatron is buried in the ice. Spike’s great, great, great, great, great, grand uncle finds him, accidentally activates him, and then has a map to the “Energon Cube” (which has apparently changed to the “Allspark” according to the comic) burned onto his glasses. This makes more sense in a minute. BTW, it was actually his Grandfather. I’m just making things a bit interesting.

The story continues with Sam/Spike (They don’t use Spike in this, but we all know it’s Spike). Spike wants a new car to get chicks. He’s an outcast and thinks the car will help him out. He’s also selling his grandfather’s old trinkets on eBay to get money. The auctions include an article on his g-dad in the artic and the glasses.

So Spike gets Sparkplug to go buy him a car. They go to a junker used car lot to find him a vehicle. This is where Bernie Mac comes in. Bumblebee is following thme the whole time. He drives onto the lot and pretends to be a used car for sale. Sam digs him, but Bernie is dumfounded why the vehicle is even on the lot. He tries to upsell him into another vehicle, but Bumblebee objects. He first swings his door at Bernie and then makes a screeching noise. The noise shatters all the other “preowned” vehicles’ windows. Sam ends up buying him. Sam finds out he’s a Transforming robot. Sam gets the girl. Sam also gets introduced to Optimus, Ironhide, Ratchet, and Jazz. So why is Sam the center of attention? The glasses are the key to finding where the Allspark is. Soooooo Barricade tries to kill him for the glasses. How did he know Sam had the glasses? The dumb ass put it up on eBay. I wonder what the Decepticons were trying to buy on eBay when they stumbled across the glasses. I bet it was like when Tobey McGuire went and bought a Spiderman toy of himself after the movie…

Anyway, Bumblebee “kills” Barricade, but that doesn’t last long. BTW, Barricade has this little dude, which at one point was to be named “Soundwave.” He turns into a little cassette or some such nonsense. Anyway, he gets his ass handed to him in the Bee vs. Barr fight and ends up with his head cut off.

Barricade takes a nap for a bit, but then decides to wake up and summon the others. That would be Screamer, Bonecrusher, Brawl (Devestator), and Blackout (Vortex). Be aware of the fact that Brawl and Barricade swapped names and Brawl was Devestator.

Ok, so now we’re getting into other parts of the story. All those guys are now going for the Allspark and the “Frozen man”

So remember that cool scene were Blackout f*cks up a military base? They’re trying to get info on a top secret file: “Project Ice Man: Above Top Secret: Sector Seven Access Only.” That would be the file on Megs. Well, Blackout almost gets all the info, but is stopped during the download. He blows up that whole base, which is where the Navy guys come in. They run out into the sand, which prompts Blackout to shoot his little dude, Scoponok, after them. They eventually figure out that “SABOT” rounds hurt the TFs, but that’s after a lot of cool effects and sand scenes. These are apparently 6,000 degree missiles. They blow up Scorponok and cook him over an open fire. Soundwave eventually makes it onto Air Force one. He gets all the info and gives the planet a nasty virus.

Then there’s this group…Sector Seven. It’s the one with the cool website. Anyway, they are tracking the TFs and trying to break their language. So you have Jon Voight and the crew trying to figure this whole Transformers thing out. Plus, they’ve had Megatron AND the Allspark hidden under Hoover Dam since they found his big frozen carcass. Megs is apparently responsible for all modern innovation. They’ve used him as a basis for designing most new age technology. Plus, the Allspark has this fun little habit of bringing things to life. This may be where all those pocket size TFs come in (Longview and the crew).

Long story short…Megs thaws and a huge battle ensues. Sam gets the Allspark and is hunted down for it. So the Decepticons are trying to get the cube and the Autobots are trying to save it and him. This is the big battle scene. Let’s see….Bonecrusher, Blackout, Barricade, and Brawl all get killed. Megs brutally kills Jazz too. That should be a cool scene. Then guess who defeats Megs? Is it Prime? Nope. That would be Sam. He shoves the Allspark into Megatron’s spark and blows him up. Screamer flies off the planet and we have a happy ending, Chinese massage style

Then there’s a few small notes…

Bumblebee can’t talk. He communicates using XM radio. Sometimes it’s humorous, but I have to believe it going to come off a little annoying. It makes sense if you read the prequel comic, but otherwise it’s just kind of thrown in there.

I’m not sure how many of these made it to the movie, but they drop the “more than meets the eye” line about four or five times. One of them was Spike saying “She’s more than meets the eye.” God, that’s going to be an away message

I really have to say that there is a big lack of Transformers in this movie. I know, I know, it’s an origin story. I just wish they’d speed up some of the army/Spike/Hackers nonsense and get us some big sorta-kinda-lookin’ Transformer-esque robots.

That whole “…or we will kill you” line in the commercial was supposed to have been “or we will use lethal force.” What jackleg changed it to “kill you?” Christ, GREAT dialogue choice

There’s a lot more. That’s all from me reading it once. Like I said, if you want a copy then shoot me an email. Then you can judge for yourself. I would remember the fact that this was probably revised like ten times before it hit the screen.

Oh, and it looks like we get a real gear Laserbeak. Nice…

K’s Konundrum

Q: Who was originally supposed to voice Rodimus Prime post-movie?

A: Ted Shwartz was originally to be the voice for Rodimus Prime after the movie. “Five Faces of Darkness” still has a few of his lines in it. Who is he? You can check out his resume on the link, but there’s not much to it. He was Swerve in “unknown episodes”

This Week’s Q: Shockwave was supposed to have been shown getting killed in the movie. What other TF death didn’t make it in the film?

Pimp my Mechanical Sentient Being

Ok, so our Archives got smashed in the switch to V.3. However, they still exist with different locations. I’ll start a few each week to savor the history of Inside Pulse

My babies:
Kaye’s Kollection
Kaye’s Kollection 2

Masterpiece Nemesis

InsidePULSE’s Botcon Spectacular

The Inside Pulse on…Transformers Alternators

Inside Pulse On…Transformers Cybertron; Speed Planet.

Alessandro “Rikkomba” Riccombeni: Cybertron Wingsaber, Cybertron Menasor,
Galaxy Force Soundblaster

And in closing arguments…

I know it was a bit late, but the fam was in town this past weekend. Plus I had the normal day to day BS to handle. Ahh, don’t we all miss the good old days. You know, me doing a CE every week because I was only playing poker and drinking bottle of wine every night? Ah, the good old Days

Spoiling those things which should not be spoiled,
K