Decepticon Air
{{episode| |series=Anitoon
|image=TAni DDcepticon AAir Dcepticons FFreed.jg
|
|caption=So which one of them is John Mkovich?
|
|ep9
9
|title="Decticon Air"r"
|airde=Mayay 2, 2009
|written by=Michael Ryan
|directed by=Kalvin Lee
Shigehu Takahasai
|anim
imation studio=Mook
The Decept aboard thed the Elite Guard ship decide to take down the Autoboat turneturned them in.
Synopsis
On Earth, Pror Sumr Sumdac [BulkhBulkhead (Animated)|Bulkhead]] have completed a space bridge terminal in record time, for which Optimusratulattulates them. However, the [[transwarpeld sequesequencers still have to be recalibraand Sumdac adac ankhead head argue over whose fault that is. [[Sari Sumdac|Sainsistnsists she could have helped get it right, but both builders politely rebuff her as insufficiently knowledgeable. As they continue arguing about getting the resequencone, she take takes matters into her own hands—almost literally. Using her new abilities, she fixes the terminal'ibrations ions and gets it to activate, to the surprise of the others.
Meanwhile, out in space, Sentinel Prime fruitlessly attempts to interrogate his Decepticononers for for info on the military cells that have been attacking space bridge outposts. He returns to the bridge after Jazz tells him there's an incoming message from Cybertrbertron.rceptor (tor (Aed)|PercePerceptor]],pha TrionTrion (AnimaAlphaAlpha Trion]] and ffjumffjumper ated)|CliffCliffjumper]icate that that the Autobot Highcil hl]] has decided to make public the news of the assault on UltraUltra Magnus. Sel trie tries to pull rank on them, since he's now technically the pro tempore s, an], anises tses them to keep it quiet, but Alpha Trion makes ear tear that they don't quite recognize his authority. Frustrated, Sentinel tries to pull rank on Jazz instead, commanding him to take the ship at full thrust through an energy cloud, despite any risks, as that heading will be the shortest route to Cybertron. Jomplies dies despite objections, and of course, his worries prove justified: The energy strikes and flows through the ship, re-energizing Swindle and bringing him out of time-stasis. Swindle soon frees and re-arms the other Decepticons, if they doey don't have payment up front for it, as they work for MegatMegatron, est cust customer. With the alarms muted by Swindle's [[ Jammer 3mer 3000]e Dece Decepticons e at the shhe ship's bridge just after the ship emerges from the energy cloud. Swindle quickly takes out JetfiJetfire anetstormstorm (And)|JetstJetstorm]] w demo ofmo of the SJ3K's other function, a stasis suspension ray. Sentinel and Jazz put up a fight, but to little avail, and finally, Sentinel sends a brief, encrypted call for help to his old buddy, Optimus Prim he's te's too embarrassed to call Cybertron). ly afterwfterward, Lugnut strhim doim down, but Swindle convinces the massive Decepticon tre their peir prisoners' lives: Not only could selling off their Elit|Elite Guard parts earn a fortune, but they could be a bargaining chip in finding Megatron.
Oth, Opti Optimus receivntinel'inel's message, which decrypts to "Broken Lance", a coded call for help that Sentinel used with him back in their Autobot Academdemy my]] days. Bulkhead notes the space bridge terminal detects an unusual transwarp fielard the Ethe Elite Guard's ship. Sari's ri's help, the terminal locks onto the field, providing stable coordinates for an arrival point. HUNGES GETS WHAT HUNGER WANTS. The space bridge is activated, and Optimus steps gh... o... only to emerge from Swindle's chesving arri arrived via the private storage dimension he uses for holding all his stock.
Rather than attack against overwhelming odds and attempt to free Sentinel and the others, Optimus takes ofn the sthe ship's corridors to better his situation. Most of the Decepticons giveuit, with Lith Lugnut ordering le to e to watch the prisoners in the meantime. Taking an elevator to the ship's energon storage er, Opt, Optimus perforatgroup ooup of energon cubes wis axe, axe, destabilizing them just enough. He then puts them in the elevator car and slices its cables, so it explodes near the bottom just as the Decepticons pry the doors. ors. Slightly charred from the backblast, Optimters one o the sehe service ducts and works his way back to the brig area, grumbling as he does.
Meanwhile, Swindle's greed isl holdinglding sway, and the arms dealer leaves his prisoners unguarded so he can raid the ship's stores. Prime arrives almost immediately afterward and frees his fellow Autobots, earning atitude tude from the power-tripping Sentinel. The Decepticons then r, so Optimuptimus tells Jazzewire tire the decontamination unit on the bridge into a freezing chamber to trap them, his Autobot emblem bli all thll the while. Optimus severs a sduct, gct, giving Jazz cover to escape, but then Lugnut punches a hn the the hull, sending everyone else in the brig out into space.
The Jet Twins prove far more capable in space combat than anticipated, giving the Decepticons a fair a of troubleouble. Noting their predicament through a porthole in the storage depot, Swindle metaphorically shrugs and goes back to looting. Meanwhile, despite Sentinel's continued objections and struggling, Optimus uses him as ing spig spiked slingshot against Lugnut. Sentinel inshe be e be obeyed as leader, but this only prompts Blitzwing (Animated)zwing tg]] to freez and hold hold him hostage. Sentinel demands they don't surrender, but Optimus convinces th Twins wins to follow his lead instead, and they capitulate.
Slip Se s me some metal,!].P.! On the bridge, Blitzwing, Sunstorm, and Ramjet put Sentinel, Optimus and the Jet Twins in the decontamination unit with Jazz. Blitzwing sneers that Optimus shouldn't have blabbed his plan where all could hear it, as now the Autobots will suffer freezing instead. However, when he activates the chamber, the freezing tubes reverse direction, icing all the Decepticons on the bridge and leaving the Autobots safe. Optimus explains to a surprised Sentinel that back in the brig, he'd used his blinking emblem to send a different message to Jazz in Cybertronian optical code. They all pause as they hear a roar of engines, courtesy of a loot-filled Swindle taking off in one of the ship's shuttles. As the Decepticons are imprisoned again, Sentinel offers Optimus the Elite Guard spot that will be opening when Sentinel becomes Magnus, but Prime demurs, as he's still got plenty to do on Earth.
At Sumdac Tower, Bulkhead frets as Swindle's transwarp signal moves too far away to warp Optimus back. Sari offers to help fix it, but her father points out it won't be necessary, as the Elite Guard ship has come to them. Optimus steps off the ship, and he and Sentinel trade salutes before it departs.
On Cybertron, Sentinel has a victory parade, displaying his prisoners to a cheering crowd and vowing to hunt down and offline Shockwave and any other Decepticon if they accept him as the new Magnus. Perceptor and Alpha Trion exchange dubious glances, but say nothing.
Out in space, Omega Supreme warps into place near a drifting Lugnut, who abruptly finds himself plastered on the front window—right in front of Megatron.
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Humans | Others |
|---|---|---|---|
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|
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Quotes
"Megatron cannot be stopped. Megatron is EVERYWHERE!"
"You don't know how true that is."
- —Lugnut and Sentinel Prime
Sentinel Prime: All due respect, Alpha Trion, the Council should concern itself with more important matters, like beefing up security for the Decepticon prisoners that...ahem...I captured.
Cliffjumper: I thought that was Prowl.
- —Actually, they're both wrong.
"Those bureaucratobots couldn't find their own diodes with a bitmap and a homing beacon."
- —Sentinel Prime talks behind the council's back.
"The Sonic Jammer 3000! Don't leave Cybertron without it! But wait—there's more! It also has a stasis suspension ray, handy for those tight spots. Picked this baby up on Quintessa. Nice folks, the Quintessons; give you a good deal and all the oil you can drink."
- —Swindle, ready as ever with a sales pitch.
"Guard the prisoners, or... loot the ship? It's a no-processor...er."
"Maybe I should help them.... or maybe I should just help myself!"
"Nothing beats a shopping spree... especially when it's all free!"
- —The Tao of Swindle.
"Maybe that energon was a little too unstable!"
- —Optimus Prime realizes he may not have thought his plan through very well.
Notes
Animation or technical errors
- When Sentinel calls for Jetfire and Jetstorm, the prisoners do not have their facemasks.
- Character heights vary wildly throughout the episode, mostly with the non-Swindle Decepticons being various levels of undersized. The kneeling Decepticons still tower over Swindle as he first talks to them (which seems correct, as Swindle is small), but do not appear to gain any height on him once they're upright. The final scene in particular, Blitzwing and the two clones are downright tiny, looking to be about as big as the average Autobot.
- In the crowd scenes towards the end of this episode, characters change positions relative to each other every time the camera angle switches. Beachcomber, in particular, appears in literally four different places at once.
- When Lugnut crashes against Omega Supreme at the end of the episode, his Deception insignia is missing.
Continuity errors
- Safeguard is able to create a tornado in outer space?
Transformers references
"No it doesn't!"
- Swindle claims to have had business dealings on Quintessa, suggests they could make enough from Elite Guard parts to "retire to a beach island on Nebulos", and swears by "the fifth moon of Pz-Zazz".
- His reference to a "personal storage dimension" from which accessories can be pulled at a moments' notice hearkens back to the concept of subspace.
- To help tell the Starscream clones apart, Swindle gives the Ramjet a conehead accessory and Sunstorm a boxy helmet resembling those of the Generation 1 Seekers. The new cone-head is topped with a drill. Cool.
- Sentinel's adoring public consists of a seriously crazy amount of cameos, a great many of which have not been seen before this episode. While many of them could be identified right away, it would take a further few episodes, and some more crowd scenes in "This Is Why I Hate Machines" and "Endgame, Part II", before some of the more obscure characters could all be named and shamed. The crowd includes Tap-Out, Carerra, Searchlight, Flareup, Furao, Freeway, Beachcomber, Red Alert, Huffer, Powerglide, Seaspray, Rattletrap, Hot Shot, Rosanna, Autotrooper (based on Autrooper), Mainframe, Warpath, Cosmos and Tracks. The widescreen-to-fullscreen crop also manages to cut off an unnamed orange female robot (her forearm can be seen for a split-second poking into shot over Rosanna's head) who would reappear in "Endgame, Part II", an unknown, tall blue-and-white robot (behind the second Beachcomber, above Hot Shot) and an equally-mysterious skinny red-and-orange robot (behind Hot Shot). Recolored generic robots in the crowd include a Tracks-colored Mainframe, a red-white-and-blue Warpath, and a Brawn-colored Cosmos, sans nacelles.
- Sentinel and the Autobot Council are carried upon Grandus. Behind them, the Decepticon prisoners are carried by a Grandus lookalike with yellow detailing; Derrick Wyatt stated that this was supposed to represent Grandus's Brave redeco, Dag Base.
- The "Lance" in "Broken Lance" refers to Sentinel's weapon of choice.
Real-world references
- The title is a play on Con Air, a Nicolas Cage movie where prisoners being transported by plane get free and do bad things.
- Sentinel's phrase "Broken Lance" is similar to the U.S. military term "Broken Arrow", which is used to describe a cock-up involving nuclear weapons. In this context, it is more likely to be a reference to the 1996 action film of the same name, in which John Travolta hijacks a stealth bomber (in order to sell the nuclear missiles on board).
- Speaking of action movies, Optimus crawling through an air shaft, while sarcastically complaining about how much fun he's having, is very similar to a famous sequence from Die Hard. The exploding elevator trick also appears in the film.
- When Optimus drops out of the air shaft suspended by a wire harness, it's similar to a famous sequence from the Tom Cruise version of Mission Impossible.
- Optimus claiming to have a small chamber that can trap his foes, only for them to doublecross him and force him inside it, only for him to triplecross them when the chamber is the only place safe from the real trap, is similar to a famous sequence from Superman II.
- Sari's fingers extending and separating when she types are a reference to Ghost in the Shell.
- When Sentinel uses his remote to unlock and re-lock Lugnut's mouth clamps, it makes the same noise as a car alarm remote.
- When Swindle first hears Megatron's name, his facial expression changes with the sound of a cash register.
- Swindle's personal storage dimension features old Hanna-Barbera stock sound effects, typically used to denote magic spells.
- Swindle's "Don't leave Cybertron without it!" is a variation of the American Express credit card slogan "Don't leave home without it." He immediately follows that up with "But wait, there's more!", one of TV huckster Ron Popeil's most famous catchphrases.
Trivia
- Sentinel Prime went through the space disturbance to gain some time, but in the end, agreed to go all the way back to Earth to drop off Optimus Prime. So the whole thing ended up being a rather pointless act. Lesson learned, Sentinel?
- Sentinel seems to have decided to keep his Earth alt-mode this time.
- At the end of "SUV: Society of Ultimate Villainy", Captain Fanzone claimed that Swindle would be stripped down for parts. But other than his weapons (which would have been confiscated by the Elite Guard if the Detroit Police hadn't already taken them), nothing obvious seems to be missing from his person. Maybe Fanzone was just trying to freak him out?
- When he's giving the helmets to Sunstorm and Ramjet, Swindle mentions in a very casual manner that he "never could get the hang of cloning." Thinking back, no one was really shocked to see the army of clones that Starscream created. So maybe, cloning is something fairly common among Decepticons, or at least was at some point.
- This episode marks the last appearance of Blitzwing, Sunstorm, Ramjet, and Swindle. They were some of the most loved Decepticons as well!
