Remorse
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 Megatron takes his nemesis not becoming a Masterpiece toy poorly. | ||||||
| "Remorse" (Aseri) "Regret: Impatience" | ||||||
| Production code | TF: A-40 | |||||
| Production company | TV Tokyo, NAS | |||||
| Airdate | August 20, 2003 (English, Canada) October 3, 2003 (Japanese) October 17, 2003 (English, United States) | |||||
| Writer | Akira Okeya | |||||
| Director | Yukio Okazaki | |||||
| Animation studio | Actas Inc. | |||||
| Continuity | Unicron Trilogy | |||||
The Autobots mourn the loss of Optimus Prime, and Hot Shot is hit particularly hard.
Synopsis
The Decepticons celebrate the destruction of Autobot leader Optimus Prime. While Cyclonus laughs, Megatron and Starscream stay calm, regretting the victory (for different reasons). Acting glad, Megatron orders his crew to return to Cybertron.
In the Autobot base, the kids have trouble coming to terms with the death of Optimus Prime, Fred openly crying. Rad understands that Optimus knew he would die, and he mourns that nobody on Earth would know that Optimus died to save all humans.
A week later, the Autobots are still sad, but repressing their sadness to get work done has increased tensions. Hot Shot gets frustrated with how passively the other Autobots have been handling Optimus Prime's death, and goes to the teleporter room to meet with Jetfire. He recalls the time he accused Optimus of letting the Decepticons getting the upper hand by letting Starscream join the Autobots. Jetfire returns from his mission to the Decepticons' now-abandoned moon-base, and Hot Shot promptly demands Jetfire take him to space to vengefully hunt down the Decepticons.
The other Autobots arrive and try to stress how important it is that the spaceship be finished. But Hot Shot just tells his friends to shut up. Scavenger, insulted, throws Hot Shot to the ground. He commands Hot Shot to be silent as he drags the younger Autobot away. The two teleport away, and Jolt follows. The rest of the kids and Autobots are left to wonder what Scavenger intends to do.
Alexis determines Scavenger and Hot Shot to be on an abandoned highway. There, Scavenger brutalizes Hot Shot, and demands he fights back. Hot Shot avoids most of Scavenger's punches, but doesn't retaliate. The kids and Autobots watch as Hot Shot is thrown around. Hot Shot finally fights back when Scavenger mentions Optimus. When the two Transformers press their weight against each other, Scavenger mentions that it was Hot Shot that made him switch to the Autobots. Between punches, Scavenger explains that Optimus had integrity, and that's why Starscream was allowed to join the Autobots. Alexis, watching the fight with the Autobots (who refuse to help Hot Shot) figures out that Hot Shot blames himself for Optimus Prime's death.
Hot Shot retreats away from Scavenger, still convinced that Optimus needs to be avenged. Blurr encounters Hot Shot on the freeway, but Hot Shot escapes again. The kids try to reason with the Autobots that abusing Hot Shot won't help Hot Shot overcome his own anxieties—but Red Alert is adamant that aggressive therapy is needed.
Side Swipe blocks Hot Shot's path and prepares to open fire against his brother. The Mini-Cons join in on forming the barricade, bringing Hot Shot to an advanced stop. Even Jolt abandons Hot Shot to join the other Mini-Cons. Hot Shot remembers Optimus Prime's word about trusting the Mini-Cons. Thanks to the Mini-Cons, Hot Shot has a moment of clarity and recalls what the war with the Decepticons is about.
Hot Shot apologizes to the assembled Mini-Cons and Autobots. He wants to re-join and help in the fight against the Decepticons as part of the team again. With the Autobots' morale revitalized, Jetfire announces that he's making Hot Shot the new Autobot commander. Scavenger arrives and starts to take a swing at the new commander, but Hot Shot doesn't move an inch. Scavenger cuts his punch before hitting, and gives Hot Shot his approval.
Later that evening, Jetfire tries to give Hot Shot the Matrix, but Hot Shot declines to accept it. Instead, he announces that he'll only lead the Autobots until the team gets back to Cybertron. Working together, the team gets back to work and gets ready to stop the Decepticons.
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Humans | Mini-Cons |
|---|---|---|---|
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Quotes
"Do you have any idea why I left the Decepticons and came over to the Autobots?"
"Better money?"
"I joined because of you."
- —Scavenger and Hot Shot
"That complete lack of fear has served you well, Hot Shot."
- —Scavenger hasn't been paying attention.
"Wow, either I'm overheating or I just heard Optimus speak to me directly from the other side."
"Hey, that doesn't surprise me. In fact, I bet Optimus woulda chosen you to become the next commander of the Autobots."
- —Hot Shot and Jetfire in a WTF moment
"Yo, Autobots! Saddle up! We're going back to Cybertron!"
- —Hot Shot gets down with the kids.
Notes
Differences with Legends of the Microns
- The opening flashback of the previous episode has Rad narrating over how he thought it was all over for Earth, but Optimus sacrificed himself to save it in Armada. Legends of the Microns has Rad not narrating until Optimus' close up art is shown, and expresses how he couldn't believe what happened. Additionally, the Japanese dub contains SFX throughout the whole flashback while the English dub only features the characters' voices.
Second English dub
Two separate English dubs of this episode are known to exist. When the series originally aired, eight episodes passed after Smokescreen's reformatting (in "Regeneration") before the show started addressing him by the new name under which his upgraded toy was sold, "Hoist" (in "Miracle"). At some point, however, the dub of this episode was updated to modify dialogue from Fred and Red Alert to introduce Smokescreen's new name a little earlier.
- Where Fred originally merely asked "Is there any way we can fix Optimus?", in the modified dub, he adds "the way we fixed up Smokescreen? I mean Hoist?"
- Red Alert's response went from: "I'm sorry. It can't be done. Optimus's body released its spark when it blocked the Hydra Cannon's blast, and without it, there's no way we can bring him back. I wish there was some way we could, but we're just going to have to pull ourselves together and carry on without him." ...to: "No. I'm sorry, we can't. Optimus's body released its spark when it blocked the Hydra Cannon. We saved Smokescreen's spark and were able to reformat him into Hoist. I wish there was some way that we could, but we're just going to have to carry on without him."
- In the next scene, where Red originally addressed Smokescreen by his original name, he now calls him Hoist.
Additionally, this version added "The Unicron Battles" opening to the episode, replacing the original; that opening was not added to the original broadcast of the series until the next episode. Presumably, this redub would have been carried out sometime during 2003–2005, when Voicebox Productions was working on the Unicron Trilogy, but it was absent from Rhino Entertainment's 2006 DVD release of the series, and is not known to have been broadcast or released in any form until Shout! Factory's 2014 DVD release. However, nobody actually noticed the change until 2020, when TFWiki user Bag of Magic Food spotted it while watching the series on Tubi!
Animation and technical glitches
- During his first line in the episode, Hot Shot has enormous hips.
- When Scavenger tells Hot Shot they're not friends, he's wearing a (red) Decepticon symbol.
- When Hot Shot asks Optimus for help in his vision, you can see the corner of a Decepticon symbol instead of an Autobot one.
- When the other Autobots came to see Hot Shot after he realized what happened, Blurr was taller than the other Autobots.
- After Hot Shot has his vision, Smokescreen's eyes are too close together and too big.
Continuity notes
- Optimus and Megatron had been fighting for roughly 10 million years.[1] To have Optimus suddenly no longer be around, Megatron appears to miss his foe.
- Legends of the Microns Year Book 2003 explains that Red Alert saying that Optimus' spark being extinguished and unable to be revived in the same way as Smokescreen reveals the lives of the Transformers.
- Some flashback footage in this episode is taken from "Vow", specifically the scene where Optimus is walking towards Megatron and the Mini-Cons.
Continuity errors
- Contrary to what Scavenger says this episode, he was only an Autobot spy, not a real Decepticon.
- He was a Decepticon a very long time ago, but that was long before he met Hot Shot.[2]
- Scavenger also says that there was no way Hot Shot could've known that "Sideways was working still working with the Decepticons". The moment he talks about is from the episode "Credulous", but Sideways wasn't working with the Decepticons until the end of that episode.
Trivia
- In Germany this episode followed "Carnival". RTL II—the channel that aired the show—stated that Hasbro Germany insisted on having the entire series aired in just two months to better promote the toyline.
Foreign localization
German
- Title: "Reue" ("Remorse")
- Original airdate: 10 December 2003
Hungarian
- Title: "Gyász" ("Mourning")
Portuguese
- Title: "Remorso" ("Remorse")
Home video releases
- DVD
2004 — Transformers: Legends of the Microns — Volume 10 (Columbia Music Entertainment) — Japanese audio only.
2004 — Transformers: Armada — Best Of The Decepticons (Rhino Entertainment)
2006 — Transformers: Armada — Season One: Part Two (Rhino Entertainment)
2009 — Transformers: Armada — Volume Two (New KSM) — English and German audio.
2014 — Transformers: Armada — The Complete Series (Shout! Factory)
