Velocity (episode)
Investigating a mysterious race car, Bumblebee gets involved with an illegal underground street racing circuit, which also captures the attention of the Decepticons.
Summary
Stats
- Written by: Len Uhley
- Directed by: Irineo Maramba, Christopher Berkeley, & Kenji Itoso
- Original airdate: May 10, 2008
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Humans |
|---|---|---|
|
Quotes
Fanzone: I've been after these guys for weeks. They're part of an underground racing circuit.
Bulkhead: You mean they race in tunnels?
Fanzone: Underground as in illegal. As in they race in the streets and don't care who gets hurt.
Bulkhead: That's not what Sari told me.
Optimus: What purpose does this street race serve?
Fanzone: Eh, what else? They get a couple a' million pay-per-view customers for their pirate broadcasts, then it's "cha-ching cha-ching", big bucks.
- —Captain Fanzone introduces the Autobots to the seedy world of underground racing.
Bumblebee: Lighten up, Bulkhead. We're supposed to be the fun bots.
Bulkhead: Yeah, but we still gotta set a good example. She looks up to us.
Bumblebee: Hello, she looks up to everybody.
Sari: HEY!
- —Bumblebee should be more sensitive about size issues.
"HA! I will crush all that stands in my way!"
- —Angry Blitzwing, right before he is buried under the rubble of a bridge.
Crazy Blitzwing: Oh, isn't zat cute? They're twins!
Calm Blitzwing: Readings indicate that one of them is carrying the AllSpark fragment.
Angry Blitzwing: I will destroy them both!
- —Whenever in doubt, Blitzwing's personalities can agree on one thing—destroy everything.
Angry Blitzwing: What is happening?! Why can't I control myself?!
Crazy Blitzwing: Not that I ever could. AHAHAHAHAHA!
- —Angry Blitzwing wants control, while Crazy Blitzwing has accepted his insanity.
Angry Blitzwing: Never give up!
Calm Blitzwing: Never surrender!
Crazy Blitzwing: NEVER MIND!!
[Blitzwing swerves off into a nearby building]
- —Blitzwing and Blurr play a game of Chicken.
Other notes
Continuity errors
- Angry Blitzwing demonstrates the ability to function in jet mode, instead of automatically switching to tank mode as he did in Megatron Rising, Part 2. His ice missiles are replaced with conventional explosive ones. Maybe he learned his lesson?
Transformers references
- The street racing cars (including Master Disaster's truck) are highly reminiscent of the G1 Stunticons, and one has a similar color scheme to Cybertron Downshift.
- Bumblebee's turbo boosters were first seen in Nanosec.
- The symbol on the side of Master Disaster's trailer bears a resemblance to the Beast Wars-era Maximal insignia.
- While it's likely just coincidence, the gray helmet and purple bandana of the female racer arrested at the beginning of the episode cause her to somewhat resemble Nightbird.
Real-world references
- Blurr's vehicle mode bears more than just a passing resemblance to the Mach 5 from Speed Racer.
- (Though it's probably coincidence that the 2008 live-action Speed Racer movie opened the same weekend this episode first aired.)
- This episode borrows several plot and thematic elements from the popular street racing film The Fast and the Furious.
- Blitzwing's "Never give up! Never surrender! NEVER MIND!" quote refers to the catchphrase from the Dreamworks film, Galaxy Quest.
- Blitzwing haphazardly fires off multiple missiles in all directions in a style reminiscent of the Veritech Fighters from Super Dimension Fortress Macross.
- In this episode, Blitzwing's cannons make the familiar "high tension cable twang" normally associated with laser cannons in the Star Wars films.
Miscellaneous trivia
- This is the first appearance of the mysterious blue race car who, despite his talkative reputation, doesn't say a single word.
