"More Than Meets the Eye" part 3 Bloopers

TOTAL NUMBER OF BLOOPERS:  85

GREAT LINES:  

"Maybe Ironhide's ready for a nice, cushy office job."--Jazz, after Ironhide is shot down by Skywarp.

TRIVIA QUESTIONS:  

1. How did Bluestreak describe the shootout with Skywarp?
2. Supposedly, how far away is the rocket base from Autobot Headquarters?

NOTES:

• This episode features the first time we see Skywarp teleport.  It's accompanied by a flash of pink energy--just like plucking a weapon from subspace.  (See the bloopers for the last episode for more on subspace.)

PLOT OVERSIGHTS:  (7)

• After Prime crashes down the mountain, Mirage and Prowl help Ratchet push him upright again.  Is there any particular reason Ironhide, Brawn, and Huffer--three of the strongest Autobots--aren't helping?
• Another one for the Guiness book:  How in the heck did Sparkplug manage to survive an entire mine collapsing in on him?  Even if the falling debris didn't kill him, why didn't he suffocate when the oxygen ran out?
• For that matter, I can't believe the energon cubes weren't destroyed in the explosion, either.  In later episodes they're shown to be highly volatile.
• I honestly do not know whether Ravage's escape was planned by the Autobots or not.  That seems to be what they're building up to, what with Hound accidentally-on-purpose dropping the key to Ravage's cell, and Megatron actually comes out and says as much later on.  (There's nothing like character exposition to let you know what's on a writer's mind!)  And yet, all the Autobots' jaws drop to the floor  (including Hound) after they announce that Ravage escaped and Optimus goes, "Perfect."
• When, exactly, did Megatron have time to build all these fake Decepticons for his attack on the holographic rocket base?  (Unless--and here's a creepy thought--he just lobotomized a few of his extra troops!)  Anyway, isn't it an incredibly inefficient use of energy to go to all the trouble, just to give the real Decepticons a few extra minutes?
• For that matter,
• Optimus seems fixated on vehicle metaphors in this episode, between telling Megatron "you're in the driver's seat" and "the race isn't over yet."  (Come to think of it, there's also his "Stick in in neutral, Megatron!" from part 2.)  I am so glad this trend didn't continue throughout the series--it's incredibly campy.
• The rocket base, Cape Carlson, seems to be located in a desert.  Wouldn't a "cape" imply there's water nearby?¹

DIALOGUE AND SOUND EFFECTS: (2)

• When the Autobots are cheering Prime on as he struggles to return to robot mode, Cliffjumper says, "Come on...!" and both Cliffy and Huffer mouth the words.
• Mirage announces that Ravage has escaped, but Hound's mouth is moving.

ANIMATION AND CONTINUITY:  (73)

• In the recap for part 2, the first numeral on Wheeljack's timer is red, while the rest of the numbers are blue.  In the actual episode, all the numerals were blue.  
• At the start of the episode, the same animation of Prime tumbling down the hill is used.  (Still no smokestacks.)
• When the Autobots all fly to Optimus and land beside him, somebody (who vaguely resembles Windcharger) is colored like Bumblebee (who's still trapped in the mine at this point).  Also, Prime's missing the symbol on his trailer in this scene.
• In the next scene, the panel on Mirage's chest is missing its blue rectangles.
• The animators took some liberties with Prime's truck mode after he's set back upright--suddenly his front grille comes to a point at the top, and instead of square headlights he has a pair of round twin headlights.  I suspect the animators were using the toy as a model.
• When Cliffjumper is urging Prime on as he struggles to transform, Cliffy's missing his symbol.
• Optimus has only two truck horns on his chest instead of four when he realizes that Bumblebee and Sparkplug are still trapped in the mine.
• When Ironhide's drill pops out of his forearm, Prowl's middle arms are black instead of white.
• Soundwave has got an Autobot symbol when he announces that the energon cubes are intact.  Also, the yellow stripes on the sides of his cassette window aren't colored in.
• The energon cubes themselves are varying colors of pink, blue, and yellow.  Is this supposed to represent the different types of fuel the Decepticons have collected?  In later episodes, no matter what they fill the cubes with, they turn pink.
• There are two Skywarps present right before the Decepticons escape the mines.
• In the scene where Ironhide wants to fly after the Decepticons, Bluestreak is colored like Prowl (an understandable error, since they're designed so similarly), and the top of Prime's pelvis is red instead of white.
• After Ironhide does fly off and Bluestreak follows him, Prime is missing the detailing on his legs, and both he and Jazz are missing the details on their forearms.
• Once in the air, a gun suddenly appears on Ironhide's back.  In the next scene, it's gone again.  Then it appears again.  And then it comes out through a hatch in his back.  (I'm waiting for him to pull a petro-rabbit out of a hat next.)
• After Skywarp asks permission to teleport, the glowing part of Megatron's energon cube suddenly jumps to the right side of the screen, leaving the black paint visible underneath.
• When Ironhide is shot down, his gun is missing again.
• As Ironhide is assessing his damages, the headlights on the bottom of his chest are red instead of grey.
• In the next scene, Gears is colored like Cliffjumper.
• When Prime transforms and drives off, the Autobot symbol on his trailer is in the wrong place--it's much too low.
• As the other Autobots drive off, Jazz's racing stripes are red instead of blue.
• When Hound proposes his plan and Prowl asks what the hologram will be, his door handles are red.  They should be white.
• I'm all for the animators exaggerating certain features if it looks cool, but in this scene Jazz's optic visor is just way too big.  It looks like it's ready to engulf his face.
• When Hound's holographic image of Megatron first appears, it's missing the Decepticon symbol on his chest.  (I also doubt the likelihood that Hound could get close enough to Megatron to capture a hologram of him just standing around, but getting back to things...)
• After Hound creates the holo-Megs, Hound's shoulder flashes from black to green for an instant.  Also, Hound's body is overlapping one of the bars of Ravage's cage, which is supposed to be in the foreground.  The end result makes Hound look really small (and makes it look like Ravage is about to bite chunk out of his hinder).
• When Hound first suggests using a hologram to trick the Decepticons, Prowl's arms are entirely black--his upper arms should be white.
• As Hound is telling Mirage about the "secret" supply of rocket fuel, a panel on Mirage's helmet above his left eye is light blue (like his face) instead of blue (like the rest of his helmet).  Also in this scene, Hound's key to the cage seems to be defying gravity.  As he swings the keyring around his finger, the ring never touches the back of his finger--it remains impossibly fixed to the front of his finger, with the key still spinning all the while.
• Hound, Mirage, and Ravage all blink at different points.  I just think it's interesting, is all--do robots have eyelids?
• When the Autobots report that Ravage has escaped, the tops of Mirage's shoulders are red instead of white.
• After Ravage's report on the rocket base, Megatron's Decepticon symbol is missing its "eyes."
• In the next shot of the Decepticons, Starscream's feet are black instead of blue.  Also, his Decepticons symbols are incorrectly right-side up.¹
• When Starscream says, "I've made my contribution!" his entire middle chest is red.
• As Starscream pleads with Megatron not to fire on him, the front of his chest is grey instead of red.
• Then, after Megatron fires and Starscream crawls to him on his knees, Megatron's fusion cannon is grey.
• Two Starscreams pop up right before the Decepticons attack the faux rocket base (not a mistake, perhaps, since they're fake Decepticons anyway).
• After the first commercial break, as Megatron begins the attack, the cannon on his back swings down to fire... but if you look closely, it's also still on his back.  Also, he's missing some details on his legs.
• When Prime realizes the Decepticons have tricked him, Prowl is standing to his right.  In the next scene with Prowl, suddenly there's the remains of a fake Decepticon in front of him that wasn't there a moment ago.
• As Megatron reveals that "I was onto your little scheme from the start," he's suddenly got an extra square on his forehead, in between the triangles on either side of his brow.
• When Prime says, "Go on, Megatron, you're in the driver's seat," the outermost fog horns on the top of his chest aren't drawn as fog horns at all; they extend all the way to his back.  Also, he's missing the fat, T-shaped neck panel he had at the beginning of part 2.  (You can't really blame the animators for taking creative license with the top of Prime's body.  His character model gives no indications of what it looks like.)
• When Megatron gloats over the Autobots wasting time fighting a bunch of "loose screws" (ahem), Megatron is missing the three little slots on either side of his chest.
• Eight Decepticon jets fly into the airspace of the real rocket base.  Then, the base monitors detect 10 aircraft.  Then, through the window, 15 of them come into view!  
• When Starscream transforms and lands, his middle chest is red again.
• As Soundwave is checking off the Decepticons' "to do" list and follows it up with, "What are your orders, Megatron?" he's missing the stripes on his wrists yet again.  (Maybe he doesn't even have any.  I could be imagining them the whole time.)
• As Megatron responds, "Prepare for blast off!" he's got the extra square on his forehead again.
• At the beginning of Prime's "moment of truth" speech, it's not that Jazz's front bumper is white--it's just a completely unique shade of red that's never been seen before!  (Yeah, that's the ticket...)
• In the pan of all the Autobots (where's Hauler?), the humans are standing in between Prowl and Bumblebee.  When Sparky and Spiky step up as volunteers, however, the robots on either side of them are colored like Bluestreak and Cliffjumper.
• When Ironhide steps up, he has holes in his armor plating, presumably from Skywarp's attack.  A few moments later when he transforms, however, they're gone.
• When Hound transforms, Spike enters his passenger-side door.  Earlier, we saw that Spike was standing on Hound's left, however.  That means Spike would have had to run around Hound and enter his cabin from the opposite side.  It's technically possible for him to do this, it just looks odd.
• When Bumblebee and Cliffjumper transform, their fists sort of morph into their car modes' front tires.  Earlier we saw that the front wheels are stored in their feet.  (The fists thing is actually closer to the toys, but it's inconsistent with the transformation model.)  
• When Prowl transforms, his waist doesn't swing around like it did in part 1.
• After all the Autobots start their engines, a vehicle in the lineup that looks like Ironhide is colored black.
• When Optimus transforms to truck mode, it's the same footage used right after Ironhide was shot down and rescued.
• Does it looks to anyone else that the Autobots are driving really slowly when they approach the Decepticon camp?
• After Megatron gives his pre-victory speech, when the Decepticons cheer, Soundwave is missing his Decepticon symbol.
• One of the Decepticon jets heading toward the space cruiser suddenly changes color from light purple to dark blue.  (Aha!  So that's it--they can change colors!  That would explain a lot about these first episodes...)
• As the Autobots begin to charge, part of the backs of Sideswipe's legs are black instead of red.
• When the Decepticons jump off the elevator platform, there's a jet among them with purple legs, arms, fists, and helmet.  It really doesn't fit in with the other jets' color schemes; all their helmets are black, and their forearms and fists are always a secondary color to their legs, upper arms, and wings.
• Soundwave ejects Ravage, Laserbeak, and Rumble and sends them all into battle, even though Rumble can be spotted with the Decepticons in a previous scene.
• When Skywarp and Thundercracker transform to jet mode, their nosecones slide out of their bodies as one piece.  The nosecones usually fold up when they change to their robot forms.  Also, Thundercracker's legs are on crooked when he finishes his transformation.
• In the next scene, Laserbeak seems inordinately large when the jets join him in flight.
• Then, when the three Decepticons strafe Cliffjumper and Wheeljack, Wheels is missing the green panels on his legs.
• When Megatron says that "you'd better get some help, Prime," he's missing both his Decepticon symbol and the cannon on his back.
• Earlier, Prime's Combat Deck blasted Megatron's fusion cannon off of his arm, but when Prime throws Megatron over his shoulder and onto the ground, his cannon is back.¹
• Mirage can clearly be seen firing on the Decepticon compound after Megatron shuts the door to the space cruiser.  This creates a problem since Mirage supposedly snuck aboard the ship before it launched.
• When the space cruiser blasts off and Prime screams, the sides of Prowl's chest are black instead of white.
• After Prime summons Sideswipe and asks for his rocket pack, sure enough--Sideswipe's wearing a huge backpack that he didn't have just a moment ago.  Then, when he protests, "My rocket pack?" the pack is upside-down, with thrusters pointing up, and wings that weren't there before.  He's also missing his shoulder cannon in this scene.  Finally, once Prime is wearing the pack it's a different shape and a bit larger.¹
• Megatron seems to be conveniently missing his fusion cannon as Starscream tries to take command on board the space cruiser.  (If I were Megatron, I'd never let that thing out of my sight--particularly with Starscream around!)
• Soundwave pressed a small button on the control panel to launch the space cruiser.  When he detects Mirage's presence on the ship, however, the launch button has disappeared.
• When Soundwave announces that the space cruiser is losing power, the tip of his elbow is blue instead of grey.
• After Mirage appears, Megatron takes the opportunity to reclaim his fusion cannon so he can blast Zorak--erm, Starscream, I mean.  But when Soundwave announces he can't regain control of the ship, Megs is missing his gun again.¹
• After Megatron says, "You can't let us crash, Soundwave!  Do something--do something!" Soundwave's let arm is colored silver, like Megatron's.
• As the Autobots transform to return to base, the same animation of Prime transforming is used a third time, as is the scroll of several Autobots driving off.
• Near the end of the episode, Spike is writing in his journal.  Having finished a page, he turns to a new page and writes another sentence.  When we see the face of the journal, however, he's already filled up a whole page and a half!  Either Spike writes very quickly, or--far be it from me to know why--he's tracing over something he's already written.

GENERATION 2:  (3)

• When Jazz asks if Prime is all right, they used an inset of Jazz from a little later in the episode, where he's commenting on Roller's durability and smirking.  This addition adds an entirely new twist to the scene--as though maybe Jazz was hoping Prime was not all right.  (He does seem to fancy himself second-in-command in the pilot, acting as Prime's right-hand robot and all--something, by the way, we won't see again.)
• As the Autobots are departing for the Decepticon camp, when the scene changes from Prime and Jazz transforming to the Autobots driving off, for a brief instant there's a close-up of Prime in the computer window.  Then it disappears and we see the Autobots driving toward the camera, finally ending in the same close-up of Prime.
• As the Autobots transform in succession after arriving at the Decepticon base, the windows that slide to the left as they change to robot mode are very poorly-timed.  They don't even come close to featuring one Autobot per window, which looks to be what was intended.

TRIVIA ANSWERS:

1. He said, "It's like fighting a shadow!"
2. 140 kilometers west of the Autobot base.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

1 Parallax

©1999 Inspiration Studios