Scorpinok (episode)
| This article is about the Energon episode. For the characters whose names you can't spell correctly, see Scorponok (disambiguation). |
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 Nokus scorpiones in his natural desert habitat, about to go on the hunt. | ||||||
| "Scorpinok" (MegaZarak no Wana) "MegaZarak's Trap" | ||||||
| Production company | TV Tokyo, NAS | |||||
| Airdate | 23 January 2004 (Japanese) February 14, 2004 (English) | |||||
| Writer | Shōji Tonoike | |||||
| Director | Naoki Ōhira | |||||
| Animation studio | Actas, Studio A-CAT (3D) | |||||
| Continuity | Unicron Trilogy | |||||
At Desert City, the Autobots fend off the first Terrorcon attack against Earth.
Synopsis
Somewhere in space, a giant ship thing of some sort emerges from some kind of glowing spatial space thing. In space. Within, as Scorponok prepares to depart, Alpha Q gives him a "little gift": a holographic image showing a fried husk.
Tidal Wave wonders where he's being taken. Alpha Q tells him that they merely require his services... and he doesn't get a say in the matter.
On his Mars orbital station, Carlos searches video records for evidence of where Tidal Wave and Cyclonus went. Suddenly, he observes a comet-like object, which abruptly vanishes.
In Ocean City, Optimus Prime briefs his troops on the mining operations underway there and in Plains City and Desert City. He sends Hot Shot and Jetfire to defend the other two stations. Inferno passes along Carlos's comet sighting. Ironhide continues to grumble about his assignment, and Prime gives him a short dressing-down. Elsewhere, Misha refuses to leave her city, to Kicker's frustration.
Aboard his comet-ship, Scorponok explains that they need Tidal Wave's help in reviving someone. Tidal Wave asks who, and Scorponok shows him the hologram—the corpse of Megatron. Scorponok explains to Tidal Wave that his superior needs his help to revive Megatron, via large quantities of energon. Tidal Wave is ready and willing.
Hot Shot arrives at Desert City, reassures Meeka, and briefs some generic troops on the Terrorcon threat. Jetfire does likewise at Plains City. An enemy force is detected just then; the Autobots wonder where they're headed, but Kicker is certain they're bound for Desert City. Optimus believes his intuition, and they prepare to move out. The Omnicons power them up and provide them with extra energon weapons.
Hot Shot's troops defend Desert City as Tidal Wave leads a fleet of Terrorcons. Hot Shot is miffed to see that their former ally is attacking. That anger turns to shock when he hears Tidal Wave say "must revive Megatron". Scorponok soon arrives as well. As Tidal Wave advances, the Autobots fall back to defend the mine entrance.
Meeka frets as the battle closes in on the research center. The Omnicons hurry as well, but decide not to abandon their posts. Gotta respect bots who will keep working in the face of certain death.
The Terrorcons break through, head into the mine, and begin munching away at all the tasty, yummy, energony goodness. Prime and company drive down out of the sky and head for the mine entrance. Tidal Wave attacks them, but Prime holds him off while the others head for the mine.
Prime demands an explanation from Tidal Wave, getting a "Must revive Megatron" in response. Scorponok introduces himself for no reason, then immediately orders Tidal Wave to destroy Prime. Kicker and Ironhide find Hot Shot. Informed that Meeka is still in the R&D center, Kicker heads that way with Ironhide following.
The Omnicons create a special energon star to revive Hot Shot. The group loads him up and heads out the back exit from the mines just ahead of the swarming Terrorcons, only to find themselves face-to-claw with the mighty Scorponok. Ironhide attempts to hold him off but is no match for the titan. The Omnicons give him the energon star meant for Hot Shot, but Scorponok leads the Terrorcons away before Ironhide can attack them. Tidal Wave tries to grab a raw energon star and gets a shock for his troubles.
Ironhide is awarded a Combination Spark for his bravery, making him a full-fledged member of Prime's team.
At Ocean City, Demolishor wonders if Tidal Wave is right—can Megatron be re-awakened?
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Humans | Others |
|---|---|---|---|
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Quotes
"Tidal Wave! Tidal Wave! Tidal Wave! Tidal Wave!(...)"
- —Tidal Wave works really hard to not forget his name.
"Tidal Wave! Tidal Wave! Where are you taking me?!"
- —Tidal Wave demands answers in his own unique style.
"Holy Frijoles! I know Tidal Wave was big, but this is ridiculous!"
- —Carlos calls out to his deity in surprise.
"Hey, let me put it this way. 'Worried' is putting it mildly."
- —Hot Shot, master orator
"Man! Why doesn't that girl ever listen to me?!"
"Hm. That kid might want to eat more fiber."
- —Kicker, observed by Demolishor
"Wouldn't a cannon have been simpler?"
- —Ironhide comments on the Omnicons' energon weapons.
"You can never have too many weapons."
- — Optimus Prime, champion of the Autobot ideals of peace and justice.
"Man, that kid really gets under my armor!"
- —Ironhide's reaction is not exactly unique among the Autobots.
"This just doesn't make any sense. How is it possible Tidal Wave said 'reanimated'?"
- —Demolishor questions Tidal Wave's potential to have a vocabulary.
Notes
Lost in translation
Amazingly, almost nothing:
- Jetfire mentions the enemy's penchant for rushing blindly toward energon, not mentioned in the dub but pretty clear from the animation.
- "Meeka" and her fellow scientist are worried about getting attacked because of the energon star the Omnicons are working to create, a point lost in the dub.
- In Super Link, when Tidal Wave grabs the Energon star, we see a full-body shot of him writhing as he is shocked, which concludes with the appearance of his "lightning" scars and him collapsing on his back. Energon, apparently working with unfinished animation, substitutes all of this with a still close up of Tidal Wave's head taken from earlier in the episode (and hence featuring a space backdrop), with white flashes superimposed over the top of it.
- At the end of the battle, Ironhide originally comments on Tidal Wave's intelligence, prompting Kicker to make a similar crack about Ironhide. This is why Ironhide is visibly frustrated at the end of the scene.
Pain count
- "Uh?": 7
- Stock footage: 3
- "It's time to:" 2
- Gimme a break: 1
- We're a team: 3
Animation and technical errors
- Misha is mistakenly referred to as "Meeka".
- The Terrorcons' energon stars are animated differently in Super Link. In Energon, the entire Terrorcon glows purple as the star is generated; in Super Link, just the star itself lights up.
- After Skyblast gives Optimus an energon star, Optimus thanks Strongarm.
- When Ironhide runs toward the mine entrance, the background is animated so slowly it appears to be staying still. A more visible scroll was used in the Super Link version.
- The whereabouts of the missing "o" in "Scorpinok" (and the source of the "i") would eventually be revealed in "Improsoned Inferno".
- Scorponok's tail stinger is miscolored white in parts of this episode, instead of the usual purple.
- Scorponok's scorpion mode is incredibly out of scale this episode, exaggerated in size much like Tidal Wave would in Armada.
- Perceptor's shoulder pads/High Wire's legs are—for whatever reason—rendered weirdly. The CGI model generally has the hollow inner parts facing forward, yet his right shoulder pad is just a flipped version of the left one. The first episode had both shoulder pads rendered properly, which makes this all the more odd. Further, High Wire's foot is flipped up which is also inaccurate.
Continuity notes
- This episode marks the first appearance of Galvatron's corpse in the Paramount DVD version of the series.
- Carlos, while doing his job as he searches for the missing Cyclonus and Tidal Wave, expresses a lack of sympathy for the missing pair, further establishing a lack of equality. It's no wonder the Decepticons end up joinning the opposing side—even the less violent and merciless Decepticons get treated poorly.
- This episode has a surprising amount of generic casualties as Tidal Wave almost single-handedly wipes out an entire army of Autobots. This is something that wasn't seen previous in Armada and will continue throughout the rest of Energon.
- Credit where it's due: this show has some fairly dark moments for a kids cartoon, they just usually get glossed over due to the violence being primarily focused on expendable generics.
- And thus, the Scorponok and Ironhide subplot begins.
- As mentioned above, Tidal Wave touching the raw energon star causes him to be scarred with the lightning patterns of his toy.
- Depsite doing the same thing in the previous episode, Ironhide shows no signs of scarring. This isn't entirely surprising, as his toy doesn't have a lightning deco.
- Gadgets and powers:
- Optimus Prime wields Skyblast's Energy Spear.
- Ironhide wields Strongarm's Energy Axe.
- Divebombs can fire blasts from their energon weapons in beast mode. They can also launch their energon weapons as bombs (which partially explains their name).
- Battle Ravages fire laser beams from their mouths.
- The Omnicons show off their ability to convert raw energon into energon stars.
- Powerlinx forms:
- Perceptor
Continuity errors
- The disappearing comet is Scorponok and Alpha Q's ship, but its disappearing act is never explained.
- Apparently Ironhide suffers from the same selective blindness that Hot Shot did in the previous episode. When Ironhide's energon weapon vanishes, Kicker says he's out of energon. Ironhide replies "You're right!" as he looks straight at the energon star which is still on his forearm. (And like last episode, the star does fade away completely in Super Link.)
- Kicker's shout of "We're surrounded!" doesn't really translate to the reality of "A single rather big thing is ahead and to our right."
- So, did Tidal Wave retreat, or what? He's last shown getting zapped by the energon star he attempts to grab.
Trivia
- When Alpha Q tells Scorponok to wait, he responds with a delayed "pardon?" instead of the usual delayed stock phrase "uh?"
- There's a lot of sweet looking generic bots shown in Desert City and Plains City.
- Multiple generic Padlocks and "orange jet Autobots" are among Hot Shot's troops in Desert City.
- When Sureshock disengages from Perceptor, the other two Street Action Mini-Con Team members remain combined—something that can be easily replicated with the toys.
- Nobody appears to care about all the generics who get killed in this episode, seemingly exploding and dying after a single shot. Only Hot Shot matters!
- As Kicker emerges from the space bridge, he's animated in CGI for animation conveniences (easy to hide since he's wearing his protective suit). This is a really rare occurrence in the series, as humans are usually always hand-drawn.
- Ironhide thinks it's a good idea to grab onto Scorponok's giant glowing tail blade of all places, with predictable results. Having touched a Battle Ravage's raw energon star in the previous episode, this is hardly surprising.
Home video releases
- VHS
2005 — Transformers: Energon — Volume 1: The Battle for Energon (Paramount)
2005 — Transformers: Energon — Volume 1: The Battle for Energon (Paramount)
- DVD
2004 — Transformer: Super Link — Volume 001 (Interchannel) — Japanese audio only.
2004 — Transformers: Energon — Volume 1: The Battle for Energon (Paramount)
2005 — Transformers: Energon — Volume 1: The Battle for Energon (Paramount)
2005 — Transformers: Energon — Volume 1: The Battle for Energon (Paramount)
2008 — Transformers: Energon — The Ultimate Collection (Paramount)
2014 — Transformers: Energon — The Complete Series (Shout! Factory)
2014 — Transformers: Energon — Volume One (Shout! Factory)
