Secret Legacy, Part 1
From MediaWiki
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| "Secret Legacy, Part 1" | ||||||
| Production company | Entertainment One Nickelodeon | |||||
| Airdate | November 11, 2022 | |||||
| Writers | Nicole Dubuc & Dale Malinowski | |||||
| Directors | Alex Kwan(storyboard) Jordan Rosato (storyboard) Glen Murakami (supervising) | |||||
| Animation studio | Icon Creative Studio | |||||
 Watch this episode on YouTube
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A chance encounter leads young Robby and Mo Malto to witness the birth of two new Transformers.
Synopsis
Featured characters
Italicized characters appear only in Alex's story. (Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Humans | Terrans | Others |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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|
|
- *Voice-only appearance
Quotes
""
- —'
Notes
Continuity notes
- While the animation style of Alex's story seems to imply that EarthSpark is a sequel to the original cartoon, there's simply too many incongruities both big and small for that to be possible, such as Grimlock being around on Cybertron as opposed to built on Earth, or the Autobots coming to Earth via spacebridge in the 80s rather than via the Ark millions of years ago. Photos of the war in later episodes also depict characters in their current appearances and animation style. Like the use of original cartoon footage in the premiere episode of Transformers Animated, it's best not to take it literally as an indicator of continuity placement and just enjoy it for the awesome tribute that it is.
Transformers references
- Alex's history of the Transformers is, of course, one big, geeky, glorious homage to the original cartoon, filled with tons of little nods and references.
- Alex notes that the Transformers arrived on Earth on September 17, 1984, the original airdate of the premiere episode, "More than Meets the Eye, Part 1".
- The subsequent flashback sequence is rendered using the same limited 2D animation as the original, with all the characters rendered using their original animation models, and some poses and scenes being directly redrawn from the original series. The aspect ratio even shrinks from widescreen to 4:3!
- Alex's introduction of Optimus and Megatron sees them quote their lines from their final standoff in The Transformers: The Movie, even perfectly recreating the character animation.
- The spacebridge is closely based on its appearance in episodes such as "Divide and Conquer" and "Transport to Oblivion".
- Among the Autobots' human allies is Spike Witwicky on Bumblebee's shoulder; the two were close friends in the original cartoon.
- The sequence of the Decepticons running towards the screen is based on a similar shot in the cartoon's first season intro sequence, albeit without Thundercracker and Skywarp in the background this time.
- The image of post-war rebuilding includes a shot of Optimus bending down to speak to Spike and Sparkplug Witwicky redrawn from "More Than Meets The Eye, Part 2". It even features an appearance by Hauler, an incredibly obscure character who only appeared in a single scene of the first episode for very confusing reasons.
- The comics the kids give to Twitch and Thrash feature art heavily inspired by the original Marvel comic. Seaspray also puts in an appearance on one of the covers.
Real-world references
Animation and technical errors
Trivia
- As a "sneak peek", the episode was released a few days early via YouTube on November 7th; however, the video was region-locked to viewers in the UK.
- The credits feature a dedication to former Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner, who passed away in October 2021.
