Welcome to the second edition of Lost in Transmission, where we ask all the uncomfortable questions that come up watching the original Transformers cartoon. In our premiere edition, we dredged up some dangerous questions about the original three-part pilot More Than Meets The Eye. We're pushing along with the next few episodes: Transport to Oblivion, Roll For It, and Divide and Conquer.
Transport to Oblivion
In a Nut Shell:
The Autobots discover the Decepticons have survived their crashed spaceship. They try and stop Megatron from activating his newly-buil Space Bridge.
Technical Difficulties
The design was inspired by a Jell-O mould.
There are a lot of technical and logical leaps in this episode. For starters, Shockwave has been trying to contact Megatron for over 4 million years. Cybertron is in the middle of a fatal energy crisis, but Shockwave is still doing the intergalactic version of "Hey u up?" text messages into space.
Let's also talk about the Space Bridge, a device that can teleport objects from Earth to the planet Cybertron. Cybertron is light years away, and not in a fixed orbit. The amount of energy that would be needed to power this device would be astronomical. The Decepticons first send a load of Energon Cubes filled with the energy they took from a solar power plant that was built in the 1980s. A technology that, back then, took an effort to power a pocket calculator, let alone power an intergalactic teleportation system.
During this episode, the Decepticons affect the generators at the power plant. Fun fact: Solar plants do not have generators.
Rules of War
The Autobots have an interesting code of conduct when it comes to battle. This is displayed when Cliffjumper tries to pick a fight with Megatron by punching him in the..... trigger guard. Who knew that they trained in the art of Rochambeau on Cybertron? No surprises when the move doesn't work, since robots don't have dicks. At least not yet.
Cybertronian foreplay is weird.
Not that this is the worst thing done in this episode. Later on, Megatron reprograms Bumblebee with a hose-like device hidden in his chest, a phallic object forcibly reprogramming the mind of an unwilling victim. If you can't read between the lines, this is the where a total hack would make a joke about Bill Cosby*. Not me though, as I think this moment of "smuggle the chest hose" speaks for itself.
It's a good thing Megatron turns into a gun because he's his own trigger warning!
* In case you are looking for a joke about Bill Cosby, here's one: "What is big, important, and hung? Bill Cosby's jury!"
Roll For It
In a Nut Shell
Megatron returns to Earth, tries to harness the power of anti-matter, with explosive results. Also, enjoy a computer nerd in a wheelchair.
Anti-Matters
Yeah, just toss around the highly unstable material, you maniac.
What a difference 30+ years of scientific advancement makes when picking apart a half-hour toy commercial. First of all, antimatter is incredibly difficult to make. In fact, according to NASA, a milligram of antimatter would cost 91.8 TRILLION DOLLARS. That's in 2017 money. I don't know how many milligrams can fit into an Energon Cube. (There are no milligram-to-astro-litre calculators on the Internet.) Point is, it would cost far too much to try and create the amount of antimatter needed.
Then there's the fact that the Decepticons are just tossing this stuff around willy-nilly. There's a huge problem; Antimatter will instantaneously eradicate itself and a proportionate amount of whatever positive matter it comes into contact with. The only way you can contain antimatter is holding it in a magnetic or electric field.
Also, it's not as explosive as you'd think. It would only destroy an equal amount of matter, and release a great deal of radiation. Which probably explains why the antimatter energies in this episode did little to no damage. At least not outwardly, though I'm surprised Spike, Sparkplug, and Chip Chase didn't end up with terminal cancer after this one.
The Formula
For all you science buffs out there, I present to you a still from Roll For It which shows the antimatter formula.
The formula involves a rub-and-tug apparently.
Dial-Up for Dummies
In this episode, the Autobot Prowl has his "battle computer" damaged, requiring him to connect to another online computer. Apparently, the only computer around was the desktop owned by Chip Chase. We're talking about a computer that was made in 1984. At best, you're dealing with a computer with about 128K of power. Somehow, I think this is woefully inadequate to control a highly-advanced space robot. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, this would be the type of modem used to "dial-up" to your Autobot:
This baby can transfer at a whopping 36 bits per second . To put this into perspective, if you were trying to transfer a 780p HD movie that's 5.5 Gigs in size, it would take you 333 years to download. Even if Chip had the storage space and processing power to operate Prowl remotely, the transfer of data would be so slow that you and everyone you love would have been dead for centuries. Also, it would have been a bad time for Prowl as well, I guess.
Divide and Conquer
In a Nut Shell
Remember when every kid in University had one of these posters?
Optimus Prime is seriously injured and needs a replacement part called a Cosmotron or he will die.
Morale Problem
This episode really reinforces how much the Autobots suck. With their leader on life support, they are all ready to just give up to the enemy. The only people willing to put up a fight are the three humans who would most likely end up being smashed into red paste by the approaching enemy.
The only way to save Prime is to get a new Cosmotron. Apparently, the only spare available was left on Cybertron. If this is such an important part, why is it not in stock?
Dropping Acid (Rain)
On Cybertron, a team of Autobots has the perilous task of collecting the much needed Cosmotron from Wheeljack's lab. The Decepticons respond by attacking them with acid rain. This apparently shorts out the Autobot's circuits, but evidently has no effect on their human friend Chip Chase. Now, as far as I know, acid rain that could cause that much damage to a robot would probably be doing much worse to a kid. Now that I think of it, you never see Chip past season 2 of the cartoon. Perhaps he died of heart disease or a lung disorder that is commonly associated with long-term exposure to acid rain.
Next Time on Lost in Transmission....
Freezer-burned Transformers, cultural appropriation, and anatomically incorrect dinosaurs! Be there!