Fight to the Death on Planet Hive!!
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 "KILLING ME WON'T BRING BACK YOUR GODDAMNED HONEY!" | ||||||
| "Fight to the Death on Planet Hive!!" (Hachi no Susei o Shishuseyo!!) | ||||||
| Production company | Takara, Toei | |||||
| Airdate | December 11, 1987 | |||||
| Writer | Toyohiro Andō | |||||
| Director | Masao Itō, Nobuō Shirahata | |||||
| Animation studio | Toei | |||||
| Continuity | Japanese Generation 1 cartoon continuity | |||||
When the Decepticons attack the planet Hive, the Autobots have to prove their good intentions to the planet's inhabitants before they can save them!
Synopsis
[edit]
In deep space, the Decepticons aboard Scorponok set course for the planet Hive, only to come across a ship full of the planet's inhabitants. The Hive inhabitants immediately recognize the Decepticon insignia on Scorponok's hull and turn to flee, broadcasting a warning to their planet before their ship is blown to pieces.
Some time later, the Autobots aboard Battleship Maximus, in pursuit of the Decepticons, happen upon the ruins of the Hive spaceship, and Chromedome goes to investigate the remains. The sole survivor, an injured Hive soldier, almost shoots Chromedome, until he identifies himself as an Autobot, and takes the soldier back to Maximus for medical attention. After telling them about Hive and the Decepticons' impending attack, he hands Chromedome a pendant, asking him to give it to his son Makku, and dies.
On Hive, as the approach of Scorponok is detected, the planet's Queen Bee issues orders to enhance defences, but because not all of the ships that are currently off-planet are able to return in time, the access tunnels leading to the city within the planet cannot all be closed, allowing Galvatron, Sixshot and the Horrorcons to invade. The city's children are evacuated to the queen's castle, but one young boy is unable to follow, and is caught on the battlefield.
Back out in space, the returning Hive ships cross paths with Battleship Maximus, and, mistakenly believing them to be Decepticons, they open fire. Hardhead is all in favor of returning the sentiment, but Fortress refuses, and Chromedome, Hardhead and Brainstorm fly out into the path of the lasers, trying to make the Hive soldiers realise the truth. Even this meets with failure, however, and although Fortress is insistent on sticking to the plan, Chromedome refuses and heads down to Hive on his own. Exploring in vehicle mode, Chromedome encounters the stranded young boy, who he discovers is Makku. Informed of his father's death at the Decepticons' hands and given his pendant, Makku helps Chromedome gain audience with the Queen Bee to prove their good will.
Chromedome manages to convince the queen that he and the other Autobots are here to help, a revelation that is punctuated by the Decepticons' arrival at the doors of the castle, having decimated the planet's military forces. As Chromedome tussles with the Horrorcons, he is shot out of the sky by Galvatron and Sixshot, and lands in the energy moat surrounding the castle. Galvatron then summons Scorponok down to the planet to press the attack, as the Queen Bee contacts Battleship Maximus and calls upon the Autobots for help. In the midst of the ensuing battle, Chromedome is able to absorb enough energy from the moat to re-energize himself, and the four Headmasters use the "Master Shot" attack, opening fire on Scorponok and the Decepticons with Battleship Maximus's main cannon. To deliver the final blow, Fortress transforms into Fortress Maximus, slashing Scorponok across the chest with the Master Sword and forcing the villains to retreat.
Featured characters
[edit](Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Humans | Others |
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Notes
[edit]Continuity notes
[edit]- Hive is the first stop of the Decepticons interplanetary energy-gathering quest, begun in "Daniel Faces His Biggest Crisis Ever!!".
- Inhabitants of Hive become drained of color when they die, not unlike Cybertronians, as seen in The Transformers: The Movie and several early The Headmasters episodes.
Animation and technical errors
[edit]
- Galvatron's face is off-model in a number of shots as he's commanding the Decepticons to attack the Hive ship, with his crow's feet not connected together.
- After Galvatron lands in front of the palace on Hive, he's drawn even more distorted
- Though they are already inside Hive when they exit Fortress Maximus, the background during Highbrow, Brainstorm, and Hardhead's transformations sequence suggests that they are in deep space.
- This episode features the first re-use of Fortress Maximus's transformation sequence from "Head On!! Fortress Maximus". As noted in that episode's article, the Autobot insignia on his chest is missing its "jaw" during this footage.
- In the Latin dub, the Hive pilots identify the Decepticon insignia as the Autobots'.
- Later, Daniel says to Fortress that "one of the injured soldiers" wants to talk to him, when there is clearly just one soldier.
Trivia
[edit]- The "Master Shot" attack is a lot more mundane than it sounds; the Headmasters just pull the cannon off the side of Battleship Maximus's central tower and fire it. This gun, of course, is one of the Fortress Maximus toy's hand-held weapons, though Maximus never wields it in robot mode in The Headmasters.
- When Chromedome re-energizes himself from the energy moat, the narration points out that he does it with Makku's assistance, and the animation seems to indicate that Makku is holding something that helps the process along. What this is or how it works is not explained. Perhaps it was intended to be his father's pendant, which would give that whole sub-plot a point, but nothing is gone into on the topic.
- Although you might assume that Scorponok immediately retreating after taking one bit of damage is simply a product of 1980s Saturday-morning-cartoon-villain logic, there's actually a bit more to it than that, as will be revealed in "I Risk My Life for Earth".
Foreign localization
[edit]English
- Title: "The War on the Hive Planet" (Omni Productions dub)
- Original airdate: November 22, 1992
- The Omni Productions name for the episode is listed on the dialogue script as "The War on the Boeing Planet".
- Galvatron states that the Hive ship is leading them back to the planet, despite the ship clearly exploding in the previous shot.
- Title: "Fight to the Death on Planet Beehive" (Shout! Factory sub)
Italian
- Title: "Il pianeta alveare" ("The hive planet")
Mandarin
- Title: "Fēngcháo-xīng shàng de Zhàndòu" (蜂巢星上的战斗, "The Battle on the Hive Planet")
Russian
Spanish
- Title: "Guerra en el planeta Boeing" ("War on the Boeing Planet")
- Original airdate: ?
Home video releases
[edit]
1996 — Transformers: The Headmasters Set (Takara) — Japanese audio only.
- DVD
2002 — Transformers: The Headmasters — DVD Box (Pioneer LDC) — Japanese audio only.
2005 — The Takara Collection Vol 1 — Transformers: Headmasters (Metrodome)
2007 — Transformers — The Complete Takara Collection (Metrodome)
2007 — The Transformers: Headmasters (Madman Entertainment)
2009 — The Transformers: Japan Generation 1 — Complete Collection (Madman Entertainment)
2011 — Transformers Japanese Collection: Headmasters (Shout! Factory) — Japanese audio with optional English subtitles only.
2012 — Transformers: The Japanese Collection (Shout! Factory) — Japanese audio with optional English subtitles only.
