More than Meets the Eye, Part 1
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 Admit it. As a kid, you longed to own this, and were only marginally satisfied if your parents instead merely dubbed it from the rental tape. | |||||||||
| "More than Meets the Eye, Part 1" | |||||||||
| Production code | 4023 | ||||||||
| Production company | Sunbow Productions | ||||||||
| Airdate | September 17, 1984 | ||||||||
| Written by | George Arthur Bloom | ||||||||
| Continuity | Generation 1 cartoon continuity | ||||||||
In search of energy, the Autobots leave Cybertron and are pursued by the Decepticons.
- Japanese title: 地球への道 (Chikyū he no Michi, "The Road to Earth")
- German Generation 2 title: "Im Weltraum verschollen" ("Lost in Space")
Synopsis
On Cybertron, many millions of years ago, the Autobots are on the verge of extinction. Eons of war with the Decepticons, their bitter enemies, have drained the planet's once plentiful resources. Autobots Wheeljack and Bumblebee are scraping together energy conductors, and narrowly avoid capture by a Decepticon patrol. They arrive at Iacon, the Autobots' headquarters. There, Optimus Prime, the Autobot leader, confers with his lieutenants Jazz, Prowl, and Trailbreaker on the plan to leave Cybertron on a mission to search for new sources of energy. This plot is overheard by the Decepticon spies Soundwave and Laserbeak.
Inside their base, Decepticon leader Megatron plots to intercept the Autobots, and leaves his lieutenant Shockwave in charge of Cybertron.
The Autobots blast off aboard an Autobot spaceship, followed by the Decepticon cruiser. An asteroid collision forces them to use up most of their energy clearing a path through the resulting storm. The Decepticons take advantage of this vulnerability and attack. Both ships spin out of control, crashing on nearby Earth.
Four million years pass. It is the year 1984, and volcanic activity stirs the half-buried Ark, awakening the computer systems aboard. Teletraan I sends out a Sky Spy satellite to reconnoiter this new world, and scans examples of terrestrial machinery in order to reformat the Transformers into new alt modes. The Decepticon Skywarp is awakened first, and he revives the other Decepticons. Megatron observes that much time has passed since the crash. An impudent Starscream leaves a parting shot at the dormant Autobots, unwittingly knocking Optimus Prime into the repair beam and causing him to be the first Autobot to be revived.
Megatron decrees that their mission is to drain Earth of its resources in order to build an ultimate weapon and conquer the universe (as you do). To start, they'll need a base of operations, so he puts Starscream in charge of converting the area for the construction of a new star cruiser. The Decepticon Rumble trashes a nearby power station to serve as raw materials.
Meanwhile, Optimus Prime dispatches Hound and Cliffjumper to scout the area. They find the Decepticons, and Cliffjumper brashly takes a shot at Megatron. He misses, and the Decepticons unleash Laserbeak in pursuit. Hound is blasted and injured.
Autobot medic Ratchet and Hauler come to fetch Hound. Meanwhile, Decepticons Thundercracker and Reflector spot an Earth vehicle coming to investigate the destruction of the power station. Ravage intercepts the vehicle, frightening the human workers away.
Hound is repaired, and reports what he overheard: that the Decepticons are on the hunt for energy. Prime has Jazz assemble a battle group to go after them. The Decepticons attack an off-shore oil rig, where William "Sparkplug" Witwicky and his son Spike work. They begin gathering energon cubes, but are interrupted by the Autobots.
A battle erupts on the drilling platform. Megatron blasts the rig's supports, tipping it into the ocean. It bursts into flames. Realizing the humans are in danger, Optimus Prime tries to save Spike and Sparkplug while the Decepticons retreat with their energon plunder.
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Humans |
|---|---|---|
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Quotes
"Prime told me there would be days like this."
"And you didn't believe him?"
"I do now!"
- —Bumblebee and Wheeljack under fire.
"When do we start the search mission?"
"Soon as you are ready to launch."
- —Prowl is told to hurry up by Optimus Prime.
"Fear not, Megatron. Cybertron shall remain as you leave it."
- —Shockwave, more accurate than he realizes.
"Leakin' lubricant!"
- —Ironhide
"But what about materials?"
"Use your imagination!"
- —Starscream and Megatron. (Neither go beyond it until 1986, however.)
"Here's something to keep you warm."
- —Megatron as he ignites the oil spill.
Notes
Animation or technical glitches
- Although the vehicle modes for the Transformers were different on Cybertron, their robot modes are exactly the same as on Earth. Not so much a glich since it was done intententionally to avoid confusing people. Considering these characters they are being introduced to would wind up changing their appearances constantly.
- The Decepticon "welcoming committee" that tries to detain Wheeljack and Bumblebee includes Starscream, Skywarp, and Thundercracker, though Starscream has a different voice when he speaks. Other shots show differently colored Seekers, including an orange one who was retroactively established to be Sunstorm.
- Further, the welcoming committee is shown to have as many as five members in one shot, but seven distinct color schemes, and rarely more than three jets appear in any single shot. The other jets may have been just off-screen, or mistakes.
- During the scene in the Cybertronian Decepticon Headquarters, Shockwave is consistently drawn with two hands. This may not be an error per se, as he doesn't appear again for another four million years (in Transport to Oblivion), which could mean he lost his hand in the intervening years... or it's just an animation mistake. We'll go with that.
- Immediately after a shot of Optimus Prime rallying his troops to prepare to repulse Decepticon boarders ("Prepare for battle!"), the same animation is re-used, but this time with Megatron's voice urging his troops to "Attack! Attack!" When the episode was re-done for the Generation 2 series, this scene was amended by placing a shot of Megatron sitting on this throne from earlier in the episode over the image, shouting the command.
- A shot of Soundwave being kicked out of frame by Ironhide is immediately followed by Soundwave sparring with Ratchet.
- When Soundwave tosses Ratchet into a console aboard the Ark, the Autobot Medic is sporting a Decepticon symbol in the center of his chest windshield, most likely the result of the animator carrying over Soundwave's design.
- After Ratchet is thrown into the console, Optimus Prime and Megatron enter the frame, struggling with each other. Megatron is missing his fusion cannon in this shot, but it reappears when the angle changes to show them grappling as Prime asks for a status report.
- Ratchet is shown being thrown by Soundwave, but after after Optimus Prime asks for a status report, Ratchet is seen fighting with Thundercracker on the other side of the room.
- As the above shot pans across the bridge to the right, we see Soundwave has teleported from one side of the bridge to the other, slumped against a console.
- When Starscream is shooting at the Ark the Decepticon sigils on his wings are up-side down.
- When Optimus Prime assigns Hound his mission, the establishing shot has Cliffjumper with Bumblebee's yellow colors.
- In the long shot of the Decepticons building their base, Soundwave appears in Sideswipe's colors.
- In the pan shot on the Ark when the Transformers find out they're going to crash, there are TWO Soundwaves and TWO Starscreams...
- When Rumble knocks Spike into the water, his father yells "Pike!" instead of "Spike". Perhaps he was meant to be warning his son about carnivorous fish, but of course pike live in fresh water, not salt.
Continuity errors
- Jazz's role-call of the Autobots assembled to stop the Decepticons at the oil platform does not match the Autobots who eventually go on the mission. For example, Huffer and Brawn are both seen next episode at the oil platform, though Jazz never called their names.
- Because Laserbeak discovered the oil platform long after Hound was chased away, Hound could not have overheard the Decepticon plans to attack the platform. As such, it is unclear how the Autobots knew to go there.
- While he is getting repaired by Ratchet, Hound refers to an Energon cube as "some kind of cube", implying that the Autobots don't know what Energon cubes are, despite the fact that they are shown using cubes as fuel during the flashbacks in "War Dawn".
- The Autobots are all shown flying. In subsequent episodes, this ability would disappear when required.
- The episode ends with a preview of "Part 2". While other multi-part Transformers episodes generally refer to the episode by its title ("Next time, on The Transformers: 'The Ultimate Doom'"), this preview uses the series title, The Transformers, instead. This is probably because "More Than Meets the Eye" is a retroactive name for the three-part episode, which began as a mini-series before becoming a regular program.
Transformers references
- The Decepticon vessel is rediscovered in the episode "Microbots".
- The vessel is named Nemesis in the Beast Wars episode "Nemesis Part 1", where it is described as the most powerful Decepticon warship in history. Gotta wonder why it went down so easily, though it probably doesn't help that no one was shown piloting the ships during the fighting.
Trivia
- Oddly enough, nobody opens fire during the scuffle when the Decepticons board the Ark... not even Megatron.
- The mid-80s Family Home Entertainment VHS release of "More Than Meets the Eye" was granted the Film Advisory Board Award of Excellence, proudly displayed on the video box cover above. However, this particular "award" does not reflect the quality of any work submitted, but rather that the work is "family-friendly". Cheeky, that.
- The three parter was released on video in the United Kingdom in 1986 under the title "Arrival from Cybertron".
- The events of the Beast Wars cartoon take place during the 4 million years in which the Autobots and Decepticons lie dormant in the wreckage of the Ark.
- Footage from this episode was used to represent a historical video in "Transform and Roll Out", the opening movie for Transformers Animated.
Home video releases
- In 1984, this episode was edited together with parts 2 and 3 to create a "feature-length movie", which was sold on videocassette as Volume 1 of Family Home Entertainment's Transformers collection. The release had the (now somewhat quaint) honor of being available in both VHS and Betamax formats.
