Ultra Magnus (episode)
| The name or term "Ultra Magnus" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Ultra Magnus (disambiguation). |
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 Quick, shoot at everything except him! | ||||||
| "Ultra Magnus" (Tōjō! God Magnus) "Enter! God Magnus" | ||||||
| Production company | TV Tokyo, NAS, Studio Gallop | |||||
| Airdate | 13 September 2000 (Japanese) October 6, 2001 (English) | |||||
| Written by | Junki Takegami (Japanese) Tom Wyner (English) | |||||
| Director | Akira Katō | |||||
| Animation studio | Studio Gallop | |||||
There's a new Autobot on Earth, and he's hardly in a good mood.
The Autobots wonder if he's a friend or a foe, while Sky-Byte is busy digging up junk.
Synopsis
In Metro City, a new Autobot stands atop a building and muses that he'll find Optimus Prime and take back what's rightfully his.
Meanwhile, Scourge and the Decepticons are raiding the city's oil stores, but are interrupted by the Autobot Brothers. The Autobots soon realise that they can't fire for fear of igniting the oil, so Side Burn tries to bluff the Decepticons into standing down—until a car-carrier bearing the Autobot insignia arrives, unleashing his firepower. The newcomer clashes with the Autobots, and the Decepticons escape in the resulting confusion. The new Autobot pours scorn on the three brothers.
Sky-Byte watches this unfold and mocks the Decepticons before being approached by Koji Onishi and his friends, all of whom appear to be his admirers. The shark flees in panic back to Predacon headquarters, where Megatron gives him a new mission: Find the remaining O-Parts.
The Decepticons make sure that Sky-Byte's orders to the other Predacons are relayed to Autobot headquarters, and Optimus dispatches the Autobot Brothers to his location. They're intercepted en-route by the mysterious car-carrier, who, after warning them of a Decepticon ambush, shocks them, incapacitates them, and deposits them in a junkyard.
Mega-Octane and Scourge stand at the top of a canyon overlooking the road, musing on their plan to relay Sky-Byte's message to the Autobots in order to lead them to their prepared ambush. Suddenly, they find themselves facing the car-carrier instead of the intended Autobot Brothers. Upon being questioned, the vehicle transforms and introduces himself as Ultra Magnus.
Magnus is unimpressed by the Decepticons' attempts to attack him, even mocking their combination into Ruination and promptly blasting him back into his component parts. With the addition of Optimus to the fight, the Decepticons are forced to retreat.
Optimus offers Magnus a place on his team, which Magnus rebukes. A startled Optimus asks why Magnus is acting so aggressively, to which Magnus recounts how it was Optimus, not Magnus, who was chosen to carry the Matrix of Leadership. Bitter and vengeful, Magnus challenges Optimus to a duel over its keeping.
Meanwhile, the only things Sky-Byte have dug up are a rubber duck and an old bomb, the latter of which proves to be still explosive, much to his dismay.
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Predacons | Humans |
|---|---|---|
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Quotes
"You let them escape. Are you cowards or traitors?"
- —Ultra Magnus makes friends with the Autobot brothers.
Children: Give us your autograph, Sky-Byte!
Sky-Byte: This is embarrassing. I'd love to stay and chat, but we celebrities are very busy, you know! Beast mode!
[Sky-Byte takes flight]
Children: Bye! See ya, Sky-Byte!
Sky-Byte: This is amazing! I'm very popular. I should get an agent, or a manager. Maybe I could get my haikus published!
- —Even Sky-Byte knows a good business opportunity when he sees one.
"I would've brought you more energy from the refinery, but I was ambushed by an army of rabid humans and barely managed to escape."
- —Sky-Byte's ever-so-slightly slanted description of Koji's friends.
"Could it be? That finally after hours of unglorious and back breaking labour I've actually found a, uh... rubber duck. Oh well."
- —Sky-Byte
"We've got company!"
"What do you mean? My sensors show this road's clear for the next ten miles!"
"There's this real high-tech gadget called a rear-view mirror. You might try using it sometime."
- —Prowl demonstrates to Side Burn that the old methods are sometimes the best.
"You may be lousy fighters, but at least you're good for a laugh. You ever thought about taking your act on the road?"
- —Ultra Magnus has only been on Earth for a day, but already has the Decepticons pegged.
"That's gonna leave a mark."
- —Sky-Byte has a Wile E. Coyote moment.
Notes
Differences with Car Robots
Animation and/or technical glitches
- The lines on Magnus's Autobot symbol are backwards in a couple of shots.
Transformers references
- This episode gives us our first glimpse of the Robots in Disguise incarnation of Cybertron, as well as the series's first allusion to the Autobot Matrix of Leadership.
Real-world references
- While driving along, the Autobot Brothers pass "Dongwoo Animation Co. Ltd.", a Korean animation studio to which Studio Gallop outsourced work.
Trivia
- The rubber duck discovered underground by Sky-Byte is preposterously huge—bigger, in fact, than the unexploded shell that he subsequently unearths. At that size, you'd almost suspect it once belonged to a giant robot or something.
Home video releases
- DVD
2000 — Transformers: Car Robots — Vol. 6 (Pony Canyon) — Japanese audio only.
2005 — Transformers: Robots in Disguise — Three-Disc Box Set: Part 2 of 2 (Maximum Entertainment)
2007 — Transformers: Robots in Disguise — Season Two (Maximum Entertainment)
2007 — Transformers: Robots in Disguise — Ultimate Collection (Maximum Entertainment)
